
Book 



Copyright ]J? 

GOPVRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



SECTION III 

THE ENGLISH DRAMA 

FROM ITS BEGINNING TO THE PRESENT DAY 



GENERAL EDITOR 

GEORGE PIERCE BAKER, A. B. 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH 
IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 




BROWNING IN 1835 
Engraved by J. G. Armytage 



A BLOT IN THE 
SCUTCHEON 

COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY 

A SOUL'S TRAGEDY 

AND 

IN A BALCONY 

By ROBERT BROWNING 

EDITED BY [ , 

ARLO BATES 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE 
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 



BOSTON, U.S.A., AND LONDON 

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

1904 






LIBRARY of OONagESsI 
Two Copies Hecelved I 

NOV 30 I9U4 

Oopyriirni tnrry 

CU4SS o/ xxc mv 
/expos' 

COPY B. 






COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY 
D. C. HEATH & CO. 



Printed in United States of America 



'hioqx^v^V 



Robert Browning was born May 7, 1812, in the 
Parish of St. Giles, Camberwell, London. His father 
was a bank clerk, but a man of cultivation and refined 
tastes. The boy was educated at a private school and by 
a tutor, and perhaps more by the intellectual and ar- 
tistic atmosphere of his home than by either. He read 
largely, and tells how greatly he was delighted and im- 
pressed by the poems of Shelley, which came into his hands 
when he was a dozen years old. He attended lectures at 
University College, London, for a short time, but did not 
go either to Cambridge or Oxford. His first published 
poem, Pauline, appeared in January, 1833. In that year 
and the next he traveled in Russia and Italy, and in 1835 
brought out Paracelsus. He made the acquaintance of 
Macready, the tragedian, who suggested the writing of a 
play, and the result was Strafford, acted and published in 
1837. Sordello came next, 1840, and in 1841 Browning 
began the publication of Bells and Pomegranates. These 
poems appeared at irregular intervals in shilling numbers 
badly printed and bound in yellow paper covers. They 
included Dramatic Lyrics, 1842, Dramatic Romances and 
Lyrics, 1845, the dramas: Pippa Passes, 1841; King 
Victor and King Charles, 18425 T'he Return of the Druses 
and A Blot' in the ^Scutcheon, 1843; Colombe'' s Birthday, 
1844; Luria and A Sour s Tragedy, 18465 In a Balcony, 
1853. In 1 846 he married the poetess, Elizabeth Barrett, 
and went to Italy. His only child, Robert Barrett Brown- 
ing, was born in 1849. Mrs. Browning died in 1861. 
After the death of his wife, Browning divided his time 



between England and the Continent, although Italy is per- 
haps to be regarded as having been his home. His repu- 
tation as a poet, though of slow growth, was well estab- 
lished during his lifetime, and his output was almost un- 
interrupted. The bulk of his work is large, and when the 
quality is considered is amazing. In 1850 he published 
Christmas E^e and Easter Day, Men and Women ap- 
peared in 1855, ^^^ Dramatis Persona in 1864. In 
these two collections of lyrics are some of those which 
most strikingly combine Browning's deep insight into 
life with his command of melody, although it must b6 
conceded that as time went on the lyric form became less 
satisfactory. In 1868-9 ^^e poet published The Ring and 
the Booky the most wonderful poem of the latter half of 
the century and perhaps the most amazing tour de force 
in all literature. In the two books entitled Pompilia and 
The Popey Browning is at the height of his superb power, 
both for matter and for form. After this came the beau- 
tiful paraphrases from the Greek tragedians, Balaustion* s 
Adventure (1871) and Aristophanes'" Apology (1875)5 
several volumes, — Jocoseria, 1883, Ferishtah'' s Fancies y 
1884, and Parley ings ^ith Certain People of Importance 
in their Day, 1887, especially, — in which philosophical 
analysis was more notable than poetic beauty; Prince Ho- 
henstieUSchiJoangaUy Saviour of Society y 1871, a study of 
the moral unsoundness of Napoleon III, biting and subtle 
but unpoetic, hard, and at times bewildering j Fifine at 
the Fairy 1872, a discussion of the relations of man and 
woman in which are strangely and often confusingly 
mingled truth and sophistry, obscurity and poetic beauty; 
Red Cotton Night-Cap Country y 1873, a melodramatic 
story told with some heaviness of style but with great in- 
tensity; Dramatic Idyls y First Series, 1879, Second Series, 
1880, of which the most striking are Cli^e and I'van 



Biograp^^ vii 

I<vanonjitch ,• with a body of miscellaneous lyrics large 
enough and striking enough to have established the repu- 
tation of the poet. The amount and variety of this work 
is in itself astonishing, and yet more so is its quality. 
Robert Browning died at the Palazzo Rezzonico, on the 
Grand Canal in Venice, on December 12, 1889. His last 
book of poems, Asolando^ was published in London the 
same month. His burial took place on December 31, in 
Westminster Abbey. 



9!nttotittct(on 



Although it is with Browning the dramatist that 
this book has to do, it must be remembered that the 
greater bulk of his poetry was not written for the stage. 
His artistic characteristics and rank as a playwright can 
be intelligently considered only when his work, with 
its wonderful variety of form, its amazing breadth, its 
great virility, its keen subtilty, and its almost unique 
originality, is studied as a whole. To understand 
Browning the dramatist, however, it is necessary to 
study at least the more strongly marked traits of Brown- 
ing the poet. 

A poet is to be estimated according to his manner 
and to his matter. His workmanship and his message 
have equal claims for consideration. Both what he says 
and the way in which he says it are to be judged by 
their imaginative beauty and imaginative truth. Mere 
mastery of music does not make the highest poetry, as 
is too often proved by the exquisitely melodious verse 
of Swinburne; and equally is it true, as might be illus- 
trated by such a poem as Browning's own Reverie, 
that the highest is not attained when beauty of form is 
absent however rich and deep may be the thought. 
Poetry exists to express what cannot be said in prose, 
and this expression is possible because form is itself a 
language, an essential part of the message imperfection 
in which impairs the completeness of the whole. In 



X ^Introduction 

even the most superficial examination of a poet's work, 
therefore, it is necessary to consider both his artistic 
technique and his message. 

The limitations of Browning as a master of poetic 
form have been often dwelt upon. The common talk 
about his obscurity and roughness has so commonly 
been repeated that it comes at once to mind; nor is it 
difficult to find passages, especially in Sordello on the 
one hand or on the other in his latest work, which may 
seem to justify this. In the matter of melody and mas- 
tery of poetic form, however, not Tennyson and hardly 
Swinburne exceeded Browning at his best. The songs 
in Pippa Passes : *^ A King lived long ago," ** You '11 
love me yet"; those in Paracelsus : *'Heap cassia, 
sandal-buds, and stripes," ** Over the sea our galleys 
went," or the exquisite *^ Where the Main glideth " 
may serve as examples; or the wonderful silver-trumpet 
exultation of parts o^ Saul : 

** Oh, the wild joys of living ! the leaping from rock up to rock, 
The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver 

shock 
Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, 
And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair. 
The meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine. 
And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of 

wine. 
And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell 
That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. 
How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy ! '* 

In the blank verse of Browning at its best the music is 
no less masterly and enticing. Take this from The 
Ring and the Book : 



JIlntroDuttion xi 

** I stood at Naples once, a night so dark 
I could have scarce conjectured there was earth 
Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all : 
But the night's black was burst through by a blaze — 
Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore, 
Through her whole length of mountain visible : 
There lay the city thick and plain with spires, 
And like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.** 

Or passages like these in Pippa Passes : 

** The garden's silence ! even the single bee 
Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopped : 
And where he hid you only could surmise 
By some campanula chalice set a-swing.** 

** Sings, minding not that palpitating arch 
Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine 
From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor crowns cast ofF, 
Violet and parsley crowns to trample on." 

Certain it is that no one with a quick ear can fail to 
recognize how fully Robert Browning had that power 
of evoking from words a music and an enchantment 
which belongs only to the true poet. 

Imaginative beauty of phrase is perhaps even more 
common in the poetry of Browning than melody. As 
years went on he came more and more to sacrifice form 
to content, but he never lost wholly the magic quality 
of flashing a thought into beauty. Often the image used 
is suggested by some loveliness of nature, but whatever 
the phrase be, it is made alive by that identification of 
the mind of the poet with the idea which is the hall- 
mark of genuine imagination. 

" The runnel slipped 
Elate with rain." — Sordello. 



xii 31ntroDuction 

** Great stars 
That had a right to come first and see ebb 
The crimson wave that drifts the sun away.*' 

— Pippa Passes, 

* * For the air is still, and the water still, 
When the blue breast of the dipping coot 
Dives under and all is mute.** 

— The Flight of the Duchess, 

" The Duke rode past in his idle way, 
Empty and fine like a swordless sheath.** 

— The Statue and the Bust, 

*' When is man strong until he feels alone ? ** 

— Colomhe's Birthday, 

** Infinite passion, and the pain 
Of finite hearts that yearn.*' — Tivo in the Campagna. 

* * A scanty patch 
Of primroses too faint to catch 
A weary bee.** — Paracelsus. 

**But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes . . . 

and God renews 

His ancient rapture.** — lb. 

Examples might be endlessly multiplied, but they are 
most surely convincing when the reader discovers them 
for himself, coming upon them as he reads and taking 
them in their proper settings. 

Unfortunately for his art. Browning not infrequently, 
and as he grew older more and more often, allowed the 
pleasure of intellectual dexterity to override in his work 
the imaginative and poetic mood. That he recognized 
his own danger is sufficiently evident from the poem 



BlntroDuction xiii 

called Transcendentalism y in which he warns a young 
poet against this very fault, and tells him instead of 
giving ** naked thoughts" to take <* the harp back to 
your heart again." It is also true that he is apt to as- 
sume in his readers special knowledge which they are 
not likely to possess. He is full of curious information, 
and his allusions to it are continually a stumbling-block 
to those not so well read. Both these causes have 
helped to make his work difficult to the average reader. 
The matter was discussed between him and Miss Bar- 
rett, and on April 22, 1846, she writes: <^ Your ob- 
scurities, ... so far as they concern the medium, . . . 
you have been throwing off gradually and surely this 
long time." 

More than all has Browning perplexed the Philistine 
by the subtilty of his thought. He deals with shades 
of character so delicate, with distinctions so complex 
that the intellect must be alert and keenly discerning 
which would always and easily follow him. It has 
been justly said of him: *« Browning treats obscure 
subjects deeply, not deep subjects obscurely." 

The subjects with which Browning most gladly dealt 
are characterized by the phrase just quoted. How wide 
is his range of thought and how varied can be appreci- 
ated only by the reader who knows the poet thoroughly. 
Great as is the variety of theme in Tennyson, Brown- 
ing has surpassed it; and Browning has gone far deeper 
into the mysteries of human nature and hfe than any 
other poet of his century. Dr. Furnivall has called him 
'* the manliest, the strongest, the life-fullest, the deep- 
est, and the fullest poet of his time. " It is hardly pos- 



xiv 3|ntrotiuction 

sible to make a fair estimate of a contemporary or to 
arrive at any conclusion which may not be discarded by 
posterity; but it seems sure that in the ultimate ranking 
of the poets who have thus far enriched Enghsh htera- 
ture only three — Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Milton 
— can possibly be set higher in the hst than Robert 
Browning, — and possibly not all of these. 

The dramatic work of Browning is not in bulk a 
large part of his poetry, and it is not the best he has 
achieved. H his rank depended only on what he wrote 
for the stage a number of the Elizabethans would eclipse 
him. Yet taken for what they are, the plays of Brown- 
ing stand higher as literature than those of any of his 
contemporaries, and with the exception of Shelley's 
Ce/^d higher than any poetry written for the English 
stage since the close of the Elizabethan period. Com- 
parison with the dramas of Tennyson shows Luna, 
A Blot in the ^Scutcheon, and Colombe^s Birthdayy if 
less eifective on the stage, to be superior in virility, in 
conviction, and in beauty ; while in the century has 
appeared no other rival worthy of consideration. 

In his plots, which for the most part he invented. 
Browning is not happy. He is seldom able to give to 
a play that unity of movement, uniform progression, 
and significance of action which are the essentials of 
successful dramatic effect. He is interested in the char- 
acter, the temperament, the motives of his personages, 
and shows little of that love for action itself which is 
the mark of a genuine dramatist. In Strafford, his first 
immature attempt at dramatic work, he labored pain- 
fully to produce action, and the result was that he in- 



jflntroDuction xv 

volved his characters in a complication of intrigues which 
no audience could follow and which no reader can un- 
derstand without more effort than is compatible with 
dramatic enjoyment. In King Victor and King Charles 
he deals again with court intrigue, and does indeed 
make it simpler ; but he depends upon word rather 
than deed for the enlightenment of the audience. He 
shows in The Return of the Druses that he has learned 
by previous failures, and makes the story both more 
dramatic and more interesting ; yet the action is still 
so largely intellectual and mental as to leave the play 
unfit for the stage. He brings to the making of A Blot 
in the ' Scutcheon still greater knowledge of stage-craft ; 
the story, however, is not only painful but unconvinc- 
ing, and to a considerable extent is told rather than 
acted. He most nearly approaches the art of the skilled 
playwright in Colombe^s Birthday. In every play 
which he wrote actually for the stage Browning gained 
something ; and had the age demanded and circum- 
stances favored, he might have followed in the steps of 
Dryden, who was by nature as little dramatic as he, 
yet who gave so much of the best of his productive life 
to the stage. By the time Luria was written Browning 
had come to be so fully under the dominion of his nat- 
ural tendencies that the whole play may almost be said 
to take place in the minds of the characters. After that 
he can hardly be held to have written for representa- 
tion, since In a Balcony and J SouP s Tragedy are 
scarcely more actable than Pippa Passes, In no one 
of all these has Browning been able to conceive and 
present an effective dramatic story, wrought out by 



xvi 3Introi)uct(on 

action rather than by speech and exhibiting by outward 
events what changes of character go on beneath the 
surface. 

It is equally true that he is seldom able to place be- 
fore the audience what in theatrical language is known 
as a good situation. In A Blot in the ' Scutcheon the 
one strong situation is where Tresham believes his sis- 
ter willing to marry one man while being the mistress 
of another ; the reappearance of Luitolfo in A SouTs 
Tragedy and the discovery of Norbert and Constance 
by the Queen are practically the only other good situa- 
tions in the four plays given in the present volume. In 
these the audience is able to see and to feel the sharp 
contention of interests and emotions ; and the bringing 
of conflicting passions visibly to bay is one of the es- 
sentials of successful stage-craft. 

All this is perhaps only resaying once more what has 
often been noted, that the dramas of Browning are in- 
ward. His temperament led him to select as the motiv 
of a play a theme so spiritual that its completeness could 
not be made visible even to those of fairly acute percep- 
tion in that swift first view which is all that the stage 
allows. When he had worked out this theme, more- 
over, he took no trouble to complete the outward story. 
The result in representation was sure to be disconcert- 
ing and episodical. Striking examples of this are Pippa 
Passes and In a Balcony, where as far as outward events 
are concerned nothing is finished and an audience must 
inevitably feel that it had seen only part of the play. 
Yet each is complete in 'the spiritually dramatic sense. 
The theme of the first, for instance, is the influence of 



jflntroliuction xvii 

Pippa upon other lives, unseen and unseeing ; and this 
is fully shown. What happens as a consequence of the 
influence is not part of the spiritual theme. The drama, 
however, demands the completeness of the visible, 
whereas Browning was content with the working out 
of the spiritual. 

In all his work Browning exhibits a curious lack of 
realization of his audience. This he shows often in the 
obscurity of his literary language : in the allusions to 
books few readers can have read, or to facts few are 
likely to know; in the turns of thought which are 
almost arbitrarily personal ; in the lack of continuity 
which sometimes leaves gaps to be filled by the ordi- 
nary reader only with considerable difficulty. He shows 
it, too, in the choice of subject and in the subtilty of 
psychical distinctions and analysis. Especially in the 
dramas does he betray this lack of power to realize the 
audience to which a play must be addressed. The dif- 
ficulties of language and the over- delicacies of thought 
— from a stage point of view — are everywhere pre- 
sent; and what is of perhaps greater importance, the 
progress of the play is almost always dependent upon 
inner experiences neither visible to the audience nor 
coming within the probable range of their comprehen- 
sion. 

Next to plot and situation in the drama come the 
drawing of character and the exhibition of the action 
of one personality upon another. Browning possessed 
rather the art of analyzing than of developing character. 
The personages in his plays are apt to be much the 
same at the end as at the beginning. Perhaps the very 



xviii 31ncroiJuctton 

keenness of vision which enabled him to see into the 
secret recesses of the souls of the men and women of 
whom he wrote was a hindrance when he came to the 
attempt to show how those souls might be altered by- 
circumstance and opportunity. He perceived what they 
were so clearly that it must have been difficult not to be 
blinded to the alterations which circumstance and hu- 
man relations may bring. This is shown more strongly, 
if more subtly, in the fact that the plays are compara- 
tively deficient in the interaction of personalities. Each 
character pursues his individual way, aiFected of course 
by the acts of others, but seldom much changed men- 
tally. As Browning seems to care for his plot only in 
so far as it exhibits what his actors are rather than to 
be interested in what events may make of them, so he 
uses the relations of his personages as means to bring 
out the mental traits of each rather than as forces which 
must interact. Each temperament in his treatment re- 
mains almost agate-hard and intractable to the influence 
of others ; and while this makes greatly for vigor in the 
presentation of spiritual portraits, it tells almost equally 
against dramatic effectiveness. 

It follows from this method that the characters in 
Browning's plays, if the seeming paradox may be per- 
mitted, have more personality than individuality. 
They are personal in the sense that they are well dif- 
ferentiated; but they lack the flavor of particular life 
which marks the human being as individual, forever 
unique among his fellows. Tresham, Mildred, Luria, 
Chiappino, and the rest are particularized so that we 
have no difficulty in regarding each as a person, yet 



31ntrotiuttion xix 

each somehow lacks individuality. No one of them 
lives and moves and has his being in an unviolated 
sphere of consciousness such as surrounds the soul of 
Othello, of Imogen, of FalstafF. To make comparison 
with the highest may seem unfair; but this best brings 
out the idea and Browning is worthy of being tried by 
lofty standards. Pompilia or the Pope in The Ring 
and the Book is no less true than Juliet or Coriolanus; 
but the same cannot be said of any one of the char- 
acters in Browning's plays. Some of the minor fig- 
ures have a good deal of vitality. Guendolen, slight as 
is her part, is truly alive, perhaps because the poet 
was not hampered by the necessity of making her 
work out his plot, and so could write of her with 
freedom. On the whole, however, the personages in 
the dramas have something of the effect of figures in 
a camera obscura, startlingly real yet not wholly 
human. 

Of the women in Browning's dramas Constance, 
Mildred, and Anael are the most carefully studied. 
Constance is easily the most subtle, although Anael is 
perhaps more difficult to understand. Ottima, in the one 
tremendous scene in the shrub-house, is more convinc- 
ingly and passionately real than all the rest, and burns 
with a vitality at once splendid and terrible. Most 
attractive of his heroines — for it is hardly possible to 
call sweet and dear Pippa by so dignified a name — is 
Colombe, with her straightforwardness, her freshness, 
her delicious childliness. She is of character suffi- 
ciently complex to be interesting, yet she is always so 
readily understood as not to lose her hold on the sym- 



XX ^IntroUttttton 

pathy. She is warmly human, intellectual, — as every 
character must be in the hands of Browning, from Cali- 
ban up, — yet feminine, and admirably womanly in 
her faithfulness to love when against it is set the temp- 
tation of ambition. 

Of his heroes. Browning has perhaps succeeded best 
with Luria. Norbert is, however, consistent, manly, 
and so attractive throughout that while Constance pro- 
vokes speculation and the Queen arouses pity, Norbert 
takes the strongest hold upon the sympathy. Tresham 
dominates A Blot in the ^ Scutcheony even in spite 
of the possible intention of the author that Mildred 
should most command interest ; Chiappino and Ogni- 
ben divide the honors in J SouP s Tragedy. Whether 
Colombe or Valence seem the more attractive must re- 
main largely a question of personal taste; Colombe is 
impulsive and winning while it is not impossible to find 
Valence somewhat too unreasonably and all but ex- 
asperatingly perfect. The plays as a whole, like the 
dramatic lyrics and The Ring and the Book, show how 
naturally the genius of Browning turned for expression 
to the embodiment of masculine types. 

The plays seem, moreover, to carry throughout the 
strongest marks of the characteristics which have been 
noted in considering the lyrics. The quality of por- 
traying masculine types connects itself with the subtilty 
with which Browning followed the working of both 
temperament and intellect through their most intricate 
windings. He deals constantly with emotion, and he 
is in reality the most passionate poet of his time, Swin- 
burne and Rossetti notwithstanding; but he is still a 



3IntroDttction xxi 

poet of intellectual subtilties of character rather than of 
emotions. From this it follows logically that he is at 
his best rather with men than with women; with the 
sex which may feel no less strongly than the other, but 
which after all is less likely to be dominated and di- 
rected by emotion pure and simple. Browning suc- 
ceeds best in portraying men because, to speak some- 
what paradoxically, he is too keenly alive to the play 
of the intellect to be able to find the satisfactory ex- 
pression of his genius in dealing with wom.en. 

If this claim be true, it necessarily follows that as a 
dramatist he must always be somewhat unequal in his 
treatment of men and of women. Such certainly seems 
to be the fact. This intellectual subtilty, moreover, 
leads him constantly toward regions of consciousness 
which cannot be sucessfuUy presented from the stage, 
or which at least can be effectively embodied in a play 
only by a poet who is born with supreme dramatic 
genius. The struggle to keep within bounds, so as not 
to confuse his audience, must in itself have been 
enough to prevent the free play of Browning's imagi- 
nation. Constantly his imaginative perception saw far- 
ther than he dared say, and constantly in the plays he 
is apparently holding himself in hand, and resisting 
the impulse to utter what he feels could not be compre- 
hended across the footlights. 

Nothing more strikingly marks the fact that Brown- 
ing was not at his ease in dramatic work than the 
inferiority of the quality of his verse in the plays. In 
Strafford^ King Victor and King CharleSy and A 
SouV 5 Tragedy is very little which is up to the aver- 



xxii 3|ntroi>uctton 

age of his best work and hardly a line which approaches 
his highest. In the other dramas this is less markedly 
true, but he is evidently always at a disadvantage, al- 
ways constrained by the conditions under which one 
writes for the stage. It is in Pippa Passes, which can 
never have been intended for actual representation, that 
he is poetically most successful; and it is in the scene 
in the shrub-house only that he shows an intensity and 
fire which suggest possibilities of dramatic greatness. 
Taken as a whole, the plays certainly do not represent 
Browning as a poet at the height of his power. 

The plays included in this volume fairly present the 
most strongly marked characteristics of Browning as a 
dramatist. A Blot in the ^Scutcheon is — except pos- 
sibly Colombe* s Birthday — the most obviously act- 
able of Browning's plays. The story is simple, its 
presentation is direct, and it contains one really great 
dramatic situation.' As in all the plays, the dialogue 
lacks crispness and the speeches are too long; but on 
the whole the play is unusually free from those passages 
in which the intellect of the poet moves too rapidly to 
be followed by an ordinary audience at the theatre. 
The artificiality of the scheme has been censured, and 
not without justice. The plot is melodramatic in the 
sense that it rests upon manifest improbability. Melo- 
drama is essentially sensational rather than inevitable, 
and in so far necessarily falls below the highest levels 
of art. The absence of acquaintance between the 
neighboring families is incredible. The relation be- 
tween Mildred and her lover is not impossible, but it is 
' See note on Act ii, 11. 250-360. 



3|ntroDuction xxiii 

no less unlikely than unpleasant. The youthfulness 
which is insisted upon to make it less unreal produces 
rather the result of rendering the whole situation re- 
volting. Mr. W. L. Courtney rather too sharply 
comments : 

*^ The situation is not dramatically legitimate; but 
when we find that these two characters began their 
clandestine meetings when they were almost children, 
that they are not the characters of mingled goodness 
and badness which experience in such matters might 
create, but represented as living models of purity (*a 
depth of purity immovable,' is the expression of 
Tresham . . .), it is impossible to avoid the criticism 
that such a situation ... is grotesquely abnormal." 
— Studies New and Old, 

The fact that not incident but emotion is the real 
subject — a fact which makes for the poetic while it 
lessens the dramatic value of the work, — preserves the 
play from sinking to low melodramatic levels. In any 
case, as was remarked by the Literary Gazette in its 
criticism of the first performance, ** there is sufficient 
variety and constant moving in the action, which keeps 
the mind engaged, and prevents it from detecting and 
dwelling on the faultiness of the plot." 

While Colombe^s Birthday stands next to A Blot in 
the ' Scutcheon as an acting play, it has hardly anything 
which can in the true dramatic sense be called action. 
It is an exquisite dialogue, relieved by some movement 
and by one or two fairly good situations. Its eiFective- 
ness depends chiefly upon the fact that its central 
motive — the triumph of love over ambition — is one 



xxiv 3(|ntroi)ttction 

of which the attraction is perennial. All the characters 
move on somewhat conventional lines, but the genius 
of Browning imparts to them a good deal of reality. 
The story is too slight for the length at which it is 
treated, and for acting purposes would probably be 
more effective in three acts than in five, — perhaps 
even in one than in three; but as a closet drama we 
would not willingly have it shorter. 

Of In a Balcony whatever is said is sure to be dis- 
agreed with by somebody. Diversity of interpretation 
is perhaps the best proof of the vitality and truth to 
human nature which a drama can have. The artificial 
and the false do not leave the reader or the spectator 
in doubt what is intended, but that which is fiill of 
the complexity and the mystery of life inevitably affects 
different natures in divers ways, and leads them to 
varied conclusions. In a Balcony has perhaps had this 
form of indorsement in a manner more marked than 
that accorded to any other of Browning's plays; and 
in a sense the highest praise one can bestow upon it 
is to say: ^* Others have interpreted it thus and so; 
but to me the conclusion that its meaning is different is 
no less than inevitable." 

So clever a critic as the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke 
has written of the play thus: — 

**I do not believe that Browning meant to make 
self-sacrifice the root of Constance's doings. If he did 
he has made a terrible mess of the whole thing. He 
was much too clear-headed a moralist to link self-sacri- 
fice to systematic lying. Self-sacrifice is not self-sacri- 
fice at all when it sacrifices truth. It may wear the 



3(|ntroJ)ttction 



XXV 



clothes of Love, but, in injuring righteousness, it injures 
the essence of love. It has a surface beauty, for it imi- 
tates love, but if mankind is allured by this beauty, 
mankind is injured. It is the false Florimel of self- 
sacrifice. Browning, who had studied self-sacrifice, did 
not exhibit it in Constance. The very first lie she 
urges her lover to tell (that is, to let the Queen im- 
agine he loves her) is just the thing a jealous woman 
would invent to try her lover and the Queen, if she 
suspected the Queen of loving him, and him of being 
seduced from her by the worldly advantage of marrying 
the Queen.*' — The Poetry of Robert Browning, 

Mr. Brooke has much more in this strain, and 
others have found it possible to take a view not dis- 
similar. Is it not likely that the *^ terrible mess" is 
made by the critic rather than by the poet ? Anything 
more violently impossible — or so it seems — than that 
Constance is in the first instance urged by jealousy it is 
hardly possible to conceive; and one is unable to resist 
the feeling that a certain perhaps clerical narrowness is 
behind Mr. Brooke's remarks about lying. It is not, of 
course, necessary to defend the falsehoods of Con- 
stance, — indeed, to be frank, it is difficult to feel 
that they need defense, — but it seems fair to remark 
how little it is possible to conceive that to a court lady 
of the time and position of Constance her diplomacy 
would present itself as falsehood at all. 

Mrs. Sutherland Orr, whose Handbook claims to be 
quasi- official in character, says of Constance that the 
poet ' ^ has given her, not the courage of an exclusively 
moral nature, but all the self-denial of a devoted one. 



xxvi 3(|ntroauction 

growing with the demands which are made upon 
it." 

The characters of Norbert and the Queen are suffi- 
ciently simple and plain, and it is Constance who has 
made readers to differ. It appears not so difficult to 
read her nature also, as it seems impossible not to accept 
the view that the central thought of the poem is the 
self-sacrifice of Constance and her regeneration through 
this. 

In the light of what comes later it is plain that from 
the very first Constance is moved by a desire to protect 
and save Norbert from possibility of harm. How great 
to her mind are those possibilities is evident from her 
words ; 

** We two, embracing under death's spread hand.*' 

Throughout she shows the subtilty of her perception of 
character, and although she fails to plumb the depth 
of the nature of the Queen, yet in essentials she is right. 
She recognizes at the outset that her lover is full to the 
eyes of schemes for future shaping of the state. She 
tells him that he loves the world, and how completely 
right she is is shown in the brief scene when he comes 
to her from having spoken to his imperial mistress, igno- 
rant of the real meaning of what has occurred, and 
feeling himself sure of carrying out the plans which 
have been maturing in his head through the year during 
which he has been shaping the destiny of the kingdom. 
He cries out in exultation : 

* * See this Queen, 
This people — in our phrase, this mass of men — 
See how this mass lies passive in my hand 



jflntrofittction xxvii 

And how my hand is plastic, and you by 
To make the muscles iron ! then, the strain, 
The grappling of the potter with his clay, 
The long uncertain struggle, — the success 
And consummation of the spirit-work." . . . 

He is alive with eagerness to go on in his task, and 
Constance is too thoroughly feminine not to recognize 
that she has a rival in his ambition. Her breadth is 
shown in her acceptance of the fact. Indeed, the thing 
which endangers the hold of Constance upon the audi- 
ence is a too logical and dispassionate appreciation of 
the situation, a too masculine analysis of her lover's 
character and motives. The key to the situation, how- 
ever, is precisely her perfect perception of how truly 
his spirit is set on this grand project of working out the 
elevation of the people over whom in virtue of his place 
as the Queen's minister he has power. 

No less evident is the limitation of Constance's power 
of insight. She fails to appreciate that with Norbert 
love is the dominant passion of his whole being. She 
is essentially intellectual, though a woman and so com- 
pletely feminine, as he is essentially emotional though so 
masculine. The very clearness of her analysis blinds her 
to the possibilities of passion in the Queen, and no less 
has it prevented her from realizing the completeness of 
the devotion of Norbert to herself. When these forces 
which she has not appreciated spring into light she ac- 
cepts them with an acute quickness of comprehension 
which would make her seem hard in her brilliant intel- 
lectuality were it not that in each case her magnificently 
disinterested self-sacrifice shows itself no less quickly. 



xxviii 31ntroDttction 

<< ^een. Remember, I (and what am I to you ?) 

Would give up all for one, leave throne, lose life, 
Do all but just unlove him ! He loves me. 
Con, He shall." 

This renunciation of Norbert rather than that the heart 
of the Queen shall be broken comes instantly. Here 
again a dramatic difficulty arises from the fact that the 
audience would more easily forgive ingratitude to the 
Queen than treason to the lover; the fact that Constance 
beheves that Norbert, With his great schemes, could not 
be happy if deprived through loss of royal favor of the 
chance to carry them out makes it hard for her wholly 
to hold the sympathy of the reader. 

One is always conscious in reading or in seeing the 
play of a secret persuasion that Constance is herself — 
perhaps unconsciously — keenly ambitious. She is am- 
bitious for Norbert, and she interprets his ambitions by 
her own temperament, intensifying and misconceiving 
their relative value. This is perhaps reading into the 
drama more than Browning meant ; but the poet has 
made Constance so human that each reader must inter- 
pret her for himself. 

When she discovers later that ambition is in Nor- 
bert' s mind subordinate to his passion she again meets 
him instantly on this new plane to which she had not 
before risen. The two points in the poem which seem 
to me most important, as far as the self-sacrifice of 
Constance is concerned, are the ** He shall " just 
quoted and the line : 

** You were mine. Now I give myself to you.*' 



3|ntroauccton xxix 

In the first she declares to the unconscious Queen her 
giving up of Norbert ; in the second she declares to 
her equally unconscious lover that she gives him up for 
his own sake. She shows throughout a keen fear, a fear 
which seems almost more intellectual than passionate, 
lest harm come to Norbert through his love to her. 
After the Queen has been with her she satisfies her own 
heart by protesting to him her utter devotion; when 
the Queen returns, still failing to understand him, she 
proves her self-abandonment by trying by a supreme 
sacrifice to keep for him her mistress' favor, — *^ tempt- 
ing him with a crown." Only at the last does she see 
him as he is, and her hitherto intellectual love bursts, 
with the swiftness which is so strongly marked in all 
that pertains to her character, into complete and pas- 
sionate devotion. -v^ 

The real core of the play is this development of the 
love of Constance. She allows herself to beloved; she 
delights in the pretty play of intrigue ; she is proud of 
the devotion of this man who is shaping the destinies 
of the kingdom ; she is even great enough to be ready 
to make to the Queen the highest sacrifice of which 
her nature as it then is can be capable : but she is not 
touched by the flame of that passion which makes the 
very soul of Norbert incandescent. The great motiv 
of In a Balcony is the awakening of the inmost con- 
sciousness of Constance to the nature and the greatness 
of the love of Norbert and her quick response to that 
call which this perception makes to her highest and 
most feminine nature. / 

The significance of the conclusion has been much 



XXX 3Introtiuctton 

discussed. Of this little need be said here further 
than to give the following extract from a private letter, 
which is quoted in the Century Magazine for Febru- 
ary, 1892 : 

** He [Browning] seemed as full of dramatic inter- 
est in reading ^ In a Balcony ' as if he had just written it 
for our benefit. One who sat near him said that it was 
the natural sequence that the step of the guard should 
be heard coming to take Norbert to his doom, as, with 
a nature like the Queen's, who had known only one 
hour of joy in her sterile life, vengeance swift and ter- 
rible would follow on the sudden destruction of her 
happiness. * Now I don't quite think that,' answered 
Browning, as if he were following out the play as a 
spectator. * The Queen had a large and passionate 
temperament, which had only once been touched and 
brought into life. She would have died, as by a knife 
in her heart. The guards would have come to carry 
away her dead body.' * But I imagine most people 
interpret it as I do,' was the reply. *Then,' said 
Browning, with quick interest, ^ don't you think it 
would be well to put it in the stage directions, and 
have it seen that they were carrying her across the back 
of the stage ? ' " 

Whether Browning was entirely in earnest in say- 
ing this seems at least an open question. He was not 
accustomed to explain his work to anybody, and his last 
suggestion might be construed as a quiz. Certain it is 
that many readers, perhaps most, will continue to believe 
the Queen alive within there and the footsteps of the 
guard pregnant with sinister meanings. The matter is. 



jfl^t^^J'tiction xxxi 

however, of little consequence if the view of the signi- 
ficance of the poem just given is right. To call the 
drama incomplete, — ^^ equivalent to the third or fourth 
act of what might prove a tragedy or a drama," is Mrs. 
Sutherland Orr's way of putting it, — or to consider 
of importance what comes after the closing words of 
Constance, is to ignore the fact that: the aim is|to pic- 
ture the regeneration of the soul of Constance from 
intellectual love to supreme passion, her rise from intel- 
lectual self-sacrifice to that complete self-surrender which 
is the highest phase of human love ; and to fail to 
consider how this aim is completely accomplished be- 
fore the curtain falls. 

The title, A Sour s Tragedy, has puzzled more than 
one critic. Mr. Stopford A. Brooke remarks: 

'^ Why this Httle thing is called A SouV s Tragedy 
I cannot quite understand. That title supposes that 
Chiappino loses his soul at the end of the play. But it 
is plain from his talk with Eulalia that his soul is already 
lost. He is not worse at the end, but perhaps on the 
way to betterment. The tragedy is then in the dis- 
covery by the people that he who was thought to be a 
great soul is a fraud. But that conclusion was not Brown- 
ing' s intention." — The Poetry of Robert Browning. 

This misses the chief point of the work. The trag- 
edy lies in the discovery by Chiappino of his own 
worthlessness. He was at the beginning what he was 
in the end, and Eulalia from the first estimated him 
with cruel fairness. He was himself, however, blinded 
by egotism and by self-love, and believed in his own 
worth. In the end he faced his weakness and meanness 



xxxii 3IntroJ)ttction 

stripped of all disguises; he saw his worthlessness, and he 
knew that it had been mercilessly exposed before Eulalia. 
In no other way than by seeing how his conduct looked 
in the eyes of others could his vanity have been pierced, 
but with Ogniben, Eulalia, and Luitolfo surrounding him, 
each in full possession of all the facts, Chiappino could 
no longer deceive himself. Certainly a soul could ex- 
perience few tragedies more terrible. 

The device of putting the first act, ** the poetry of 
Chiappino' s life," into verse and the second act into 
prose is more fanciful than effective. It gives the work 
as a whole a somewhat disjointed and unsatisfactory 
quality. The verse, moreover, is not in the poet's best 
vein. The prose is much of it delightful. The talk of 
Ogniben is so clever, so shrewd, so keen that the Legate 
is constantly threatening to make a greater impression 
than Chiappino. Miss Barrett — then but a recent ac- 
quaintance of her future husband's — was entirely right 
when she wrote to him: ** Your Ogniben (here is my 
only criticism in the ways of objection) seems to me 
almost too wise for a crafty worldling;" but if this point 
be waived, the second part is delightful reading. 

Browning wrote to Miss Barrett: ** It is all sneering 
zxA disillusion y And again: *^ Not a few points . . . 
successful in design and execution, yet . . . subject- 
matter and style are alike unpopular even for the literary 
grex that stand aloof from the purer plebs, ' ' Miss Bar- 
rett, on the other hand, writing perhaps with some 
added fervor from the growing attachment not yet 
spoken, says of the play: ^* For my part it delights me 
— and must raise your reputation as a poet and thinker 



3IntroDttctton xxxiii 

. , . must. Chiappino is highly dramatic in the first 
part, and speaks so finely sometimes that it is a wrench to 
one's sympathies to find him overthrown." Again: 
** The Soups Tragedy is wonderfiil — it suggests the 
idea of more various power than was necessary to 
the completion of Luria,^^ And yet again: ** The 
Tragedy has wonderfiil things in it — thoughts, sug- 
gestions, . . . and more and more I feel, that you never 
did better dialogue than in the first part. Every pulse 
of it is alive and individual — dramatic dialogue of the 
best." 

Even Miss Barrett, in the midst of all her enthusi- 
asm, admitted that the Tragedy was not dramatically 
of Browning's most satisfactory work. The play has 
hardly more characterization than it has dramatic move- 
ment. The Legate is the most individual of its person- 
ages; Chiappino comes next, but he is too obviously 
meant to stand as a type; while Luitolfo and Eulalia 
are simply puppets to carry out the poet's purpose. 
In spite of all these obvious defects, however, the play 
— or at least the second part — is so fiill of wit, of 
wisdom, of penetrating humor, and of genial satire that 
it remains perpetually delightfiil. 

The question has often been touched upon whether 
under different circumstances, with the impulse of a 
play -loving time. Browning might not have been a 
great dramatist and perhaps brought to the stage a new 
golden age of the poetic drama. John Forster, in the 
Examiner of May 7, 1837, comments on the produc- 
tion of Browning's earliest play: 

** This is the work of a writer who is capable of 



xxxiv 3(|ntro5uctton 

achieving the highest objects and triumphs of dramatic 
literature. They are not achieved here: but here they 
lie, * in the rough,' before the reader. Strafford sug- 
gests the most brilliant career of dramatic authorship 
that has been known in our time. We are not sure 
that it will be realized." 

To speculate upon possibilities of this sort is gener- 
ally futile, but it is fascinating and may be instructive 
from the light thrown on the principles of art. Al- 
ready it has been said that it seems that Browning 
might have been led in the way of Dry den to continue 
the composition of plays; and it is sure that he would 
in time have learned much of stage-craft; but it does 
not seem probable that he, more than Dryden, could 
have been a great playwright. The muse of neither 
of these poets was naturally dramatic, and in the case 
of either to work for the stage meant to work under 
constraint and at a disadvantage. 

In the power of analyzing the human soul Browning 
greatly excelled Dryden, but in dramatic work this might 
as easily be a hindrance as a help. The power of creating 
character is by no means the same thing as the ability to 
construct plays. The common use of the word *' dra- 
matic ' ' in both cases inevitably causes confusion. When 
Browning early commented upon his poems : *' Their 
contents are always dramatic in principle, and so many 
utterances of so many imaginary persons," he apparently 
showed that he himself labored under this error. He 
felt in himself high powers of characterization, and even 
if he did not misunderstand, he at least misnamed them 
powers of dramatization. Constantly in his plays he 



3Introtiuctton xxxv 

is led out of the true dramatic road by facility in char- 
acterization. He dissects mental states when he should 
show how temperament is outwardly manifested ; how 
motives ripen into action ; how mind reacts upon mind. 
He is, in a word, analytic when he should be synthetic. 
This analysis, moreover, not only is shown by word 
rather than by deed, but is too generally conveyed in 
the form of deHberate self-exposition on the part of the 
characters. Browning has the fault, one of the most 
dangerous for a dramatist, of turning naturally and con- 
stantly to monologue. His personages proclaim them- 
selves in words in a fashion which may be masterly in 
the closet, but which can never be properly forceful on 
the stage. Luria is not ready to drink poison until he 
has spoken eighty Hues of minute self-dissection ; Djabal 
and Anael begin their most poignant interview with 
a couple of asides in which they offer more than fifty 
lines of explanation of their motives and emotions ; King 
Victor takes eighty lines of soliloquy to insure against the 
possibiHty that the hearers may misunderstand his mental 
state. The audience at a play are little concerned with 
mental processes except as shown by events. They are 
interested in what happens outwardly, and with moral 
and mental changes and conditions as exhibited by deeds. 
A drama, in short, should be the exhibition of character 
by action ; whereas Browning makes a play an analysis 
of character by speech. Ill-advised admirers of Brown- 
ing may claim that the poet might or should have suc- 
ceeded on the stage, but it is no more true in his case 
than it was in that of Tennyson. The poet-laureate 
had every advantage of great popularity, of the reputa- 



xxxvi jflntrotittction 

tion and wonderful stage-management of Irving, of lav- 
ish and rich setting, yet with all these his plays have 
been a failure, just as the plays of Browning were a 
failure. In either case a great poet was working under 
conditions to which his genius could not conform, and 
in both cases the result was in the end practically the 
same. 

It is something to be able, in these days of the un- 
wholesome and the sensational, when the stage holds the 
mirror up not to nature so much as to morbid or vulgar 
perversions, to add that Browning is always virile and 
sound. With the Mephistophelian spirit that denies he 
had nothing in common, nor for the neurotic or unclean 
pessimism of his day had he sympathy or tolerance. 
While as compared to his greatest poetry the plays must 
be regarded as inferior, they are still full of manliness, 
of vigor, and of deep interest; contributions to the lit- 
erature of the nineteenth century of genuine merit and 
of lasting value. 



THE TEXTS 

The texts in this volume are those of the latest edition, 1 888-94, 
which had the personal supervision of Robert Browning. The only 
changes beyond those noted in the variants are the substitution, in 
conformity with the usage of the series, of a ( for a [ on asides and 
stage directions, and the addition of some evident punctuation which 
had disappeared at the end of lines. 

The variants given are chiefly from the first edition, for almost all 
changes, except in the matter of punctuation and italics, were made in 
the second edition of each play. The 1888-94 text has been care- 
fully recollated with Nos. v, vi, viii, of Bells and Pomegranates , 
1843, 1844, 1846, which contain the first editions of A Blot in 
the ^ Scutcheon J Colombe'* s Birthday^ and A SouPs Tragedy, and with 
the first version of In a Balcony, printed in Vol. 11 of Men and 
JVomen, 1855, This has been necessary because existing texts are 
inadequate as to variants and, especially some of the American re- 
prints of the edition of 1888-94, are not free from oversights and 
errors. The variants are generally improvements, though they do 
not seem to be so in all cases. The two or three instances in 
which misprints — in one case pointed out by Browning himself — 
have been corrected are noted. The student has here, then, the 
final form of the plays as the poet wished them to stand. That 
Browning was influenced more than has been supposed by popular 
usage is perhaps shown by the careful change, in the 1888-94 edi- 
tion of A SouV s Tragedy, of had rather to ivould rather. That by 
1888 he had come to regard his plays as for the closet rather than 
the stage is evident from his dropping, in A Blot in the ''Scutcheon 
and Colombe* s Birthday, of all references to the setting and the cur- 
tain and of exit and exeunt, or the substitution for those words of 
some non-theatrical synonym such as goes out or ivithdraivs. 

Browning's changes in punctuation are so numerous that the 
attempt to note them all would require much space. They seem to 
be caused in general quite as much by uncertainty on the part of the 
poet as by any intelligent knowledge or theory of the eff^ect or office of 
punctuation, and they are constantly inconsistent. The editor is 
enough of a conservative to find Browning's superabundant dashes, 
dots, and marks of parenthesis, especially when they trouble the 



xxxviii XE^t tl^tXtS 

eye as they so often do by intruding themselves at the beginning 
of the line, rather trying than enlightening. Browning evidently 
had a feeling of a difference of value between a dash and three dots, 
and apparently used the dots to indicate a longer or more profound 
pause than the dash. Often he combined them : — 

When man perceives . . . 

— Ah, I can only speak as for myself. 

— Colombe's Birthday^ v, 313, 314. 

After studying all the passages like this noted, the editor arrived at 
the somewhat remote theory that the dots to Browning's mind re- 
presented a feeling on the part of the speaker that what he had begun 
was after all not to be said, that he had come to that which word 
would not express 5 while the dash indicated an outward rather than 
an inner pause. The idea is a little fantastic, but not on that account 
untenable. Even if it is true, the editor is not able to divine the dif- 
ference in the placing of the dashes in passages like the following : 

— Must have him load me vi^ith his benefits 

— For fortune's fiercest stroke. 

— A SouVs Tragedy, i, 173, 174. 

— It had not looked so well to let me drop, — 

— lb,, i, 201. 

The fact that in so many places Browning altered these marks 
from one edition to another seems to indicate that he had some 
theory — or perhaps more properly some feeling about their force. 
The result, however, is not infrequently to give an effect not unlike 
that produced by the young person who punctuates largely with emo- 
tional dashes 5 for instance: — 

And God's — So — seeing these men and myself. 
And God's : so, seeing these men and myself. 

— A SouFs Tragedy y i, 246. 

Here, and in many other lines the changes are in the line of sanity 
and sobriety of punctuation. 

All the prefatory matter of the original editions of the plays is 
reproduced, but the title-page of only A Blot in the ^Scutcheon is 
given because In a Balcony had none and those of the three num- 
bers of Belh and Pomegranates are, except in the name of the play 
or a quotation, practically identical. 



BELLS AND POMEGRANATES. 



N**V,-A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 



fSL tZTrogetis, 



IN THREE ACTS. 



BY ROBERT BROWNING, 



AUTHOR (» " PAIUCELSUS. ' 



LONDON : 
EDWA&D MOXON, DOVER STREET 

MDCCCXblU. 



Facsimile Titlk-page. 



THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, 
February 1 1, 1843. 



PERSONS. 



Mildred Tresham 

GUENDOLEN TrESHAM . 

Thorold, Lord Tresham 
Austin Tresham . 
Henry, Earl Mertoun . 
Gerard 



Miss Helen Faucit, 
Mrs, Stirling, 
Mr, Phelps, 

*^ Hudson^, 

*' Anderson, 

" G, Bennett, 



Other retainers of Lord Tresham. 



Time, 17- 



Persons. The 1889 ed. omits the two preceding lines and the 
names of the actors. 

Lord. Earl in 1889 ed. 



a l3lot in t^t '^cutci^eon 

1843 



ACT I. 



Scene I. — The interior of a lodge in Lord Tre- 
sham^s park. Many Retainers crowded at 
the window^ supposed to command a view of 
the entrance to his mansion, Gerard^ the 
warrener^ his hack to a table on which are 
flagons^ etc, 

1st Retainer, Ay, do ! push, friends, and then 
you 'II push down me ! 
— What for ? Does any hear a runner's foot 
Or a steed's trample or a coach-wheel's cry ? 
Is the Earl come or his least poursuivant ? 
But there 's no breeding in a man of you 
Save Gerard yonder: here's a half-place yet. 
Old Gerard ! 

Gerard, Save your courtesies, my friend. 
Here is my place. 

2nd Ret, Now, Gerard, out with it ! 

What makes you sullen, this of all the days 

warrener, his back. A, warrener, sitting alone, his back. 



4 ^ Blot in t\)t '^tutt\)ton [act i. 

r the year ? To-day that young rich bountiful, lo 
Handsome Earl Mertoun, whom alone they 

match 
With our Lord Tresham through the country- 
side, 
Is coming here in utmost bravery 
To ask our master's sister's hand ? 

Ger. What then ? 

2ncl Ret, What then ? Why, you, she speaks 
to, if she meets 15 

Your worship, smiles on as you hold apart 
The boughs to let her through her forest walks. 
You, always favourite for your no-deserts. 
You 've heard, these three days, how Earl Mer- 
toun sues 
To lay his heart and house and broad lands too 20 
At Lady Mildred's feet : and while we squeeze 
Ourselves into a mousehole lest we miss 
One congee of the least page in his train. 
You sit o' one side — " there 's the Earl," say 

I — 
" What then ? " say you ! 

jrd Ret. I '11 wager he has let 25 

Both swans he tamed for Lady Mildred swim 
Over the falls and gain the river ! 

Gef. Ralph, 

Is not to-morrow my inspecting-day 
For you and for your hawks ? 



Scene I] ^ HBUit ill t\)t '^Ctttcl^eon 5 

ph Ret. Let Gerard be ! 

He 's coarse-grained, like his carved black cross- 
bow stock. 30 
Ha, look now, while we squabble with him, 

look ! 
Well done, now — is not this beginning, now, 
To purpose ? 

1st Ret. Our retainers look as fine — 
That 's comfort. Lord, how Richard holds him- 
self 
With his white staff! Will not a knave behind 35 
Prick him upright ? 

^th Ret. He 's only bowing, fool ! 

The Earl's man bent us lower by this much. 
1st Ret. That 's comfort. Here 's a very 

cavalcade ! 
jrd Ret. I don't see wherefore Richard, and 
his troop 
Of silk and silver varlets there, should find 40 

Their perfumed selves so indispensable 
On high days, holidays ! Would it so disgrace 
Our family, if I, for instance, stood — 
In my right hand a cast of Swedish hawks, 
A leash of greyhounds in my left ? — 

Ger. —With Hugh 45 

The logman for supporter, in his right 
The bill-hook, in his left the brushwood-shears ! 

42 holidays. A, holy days. 



6 ;a 315lot in t^t 'g)cutclieon [act i. 

jrd Ret. Out on you, crab! What next, 
what next ? The Earl ! 

1st Ret. Oh Walter, groom, our horses, do 
they match 
The Earl's ? Alas, that first pair of the six — 50 
They paw the ground — Ah Walter ! and that 

brute 
Just on his haunches by the wheel ! 

6th Ret. Ay — ay ! 

You, Philip, are a special hand, I hear. 
At soups and sauces : what 's a horse to you ? 
D' ye mark that beast they 've slid into the midst 55 
So cunningly ? — then, Philip, mark this further ; 
No leg has he to stand on ! 

1st Ret. No ? That 's comfort. 

2nd Ret. Peace, Cook ! The Earl descends. 
Well, Gerard, see 
The Earl at least ! Come, there 's a proper man, 
I hope ! Why, Ralph, no falcon, Pole or Swede, 60 
Has got a starrier eye. 

jrd Ret. His eyes are blue : 

But leave my hawks alone ! 

^th Ret. So young, and yet 

So tall and shapely ! 

jith Ret. Here's Lord Tresham's self! 

There now — there's what a nobleman should be ! 
He 's older, graver, loftier, he 's more like 65 

A House's head. 



Scene I] ^ BlOt tU t\)t '^CUttl^eOn J 

2nd Ret. But you 'd not have a boy 

— And what's the Earl beside ? — possess too 

soon 
That stateliness ? 

1st Ret. Our master takes his hand — 

Richard and his white staff are on the move — 
Back fall our people — (tsh ! — there 's Timothy 70 
Sure to get tangled in his ribbon-ties, 
And Peter's cursed rosette's a-coming off!) 

— At last I see our lord's back and his friend's ; 
And the whole beautiful bright company 
Close round them — in they go ! 

jumping down from the window-bench^ 
and making for the table and its jugs. 

Good health, long life, 75 
Great joy to our Lord Tresham and his House ! 
6th Ret. My father drove his father first to 
court. 
After his marriage day — ay, did he ! 

2nd Ret. God bless 

Lord Tresham, Lady Mildred, and the Earl ! 
Here, Gerard, reach your beaker ! 

Ger. Drink, my boys ! 80 

Don't mind me — all 's not right about me — 
drink ! 
2nd Ret. (^aside). He 's vexed, now, that he 
let the show escape ! 
(To Gerard.) Remember that the Earl returns 
this way. 



8 ;a llBlot in ti)t '^tntt\)ton [act i. 

Ger. That way ? 

2nd Ret. Just so. 

Ger. Then my way 's here. Goes. 

2nd Ret. Old Gerard 

Will die soon — mind, I said it ! He was used 85 
To care about the pitifullest thing 
That touched the House's honour, not an eye 
But his could see wherein : and on a cause 
Of scarce a quarter this importance, Gerard 
Fairly had fretted flesh and bone away 90 

In cares that this was right, nor that was wrong, 
Such point decorous, and such square by rule — 
He knew such niceties, no herald more: 
And now — you see his humour : die he will ! 

[/J/] Ret. God help him ! Who 's for the 
great servants'-hall 95 

To hear what 's going on inside ? They 'd follow 
Lord Tresham into the saloon. 

jrd Ret. I ! — 

ph Ret. I ! — 

Leave Frank alone for catching, at the door, 
Some hint of how the parley goes inside ! 
Prosperity to the great House once more ! 100 

Here 's the last drop ! 

1st 'Ret. Have at you ! Boys, hurrah ! 

84 Old Gerard. A and 1888 ed. incorrectly give both this 
speech and God help , . . saloon to 2nd Ret. ; 11. 73-76 suggest 
that the second speech belongs to ist Retainer. 

92 point. A, a point, square^ A omits. 



Scene ii] ^ Mot ixt tl^t '^cutcljeon 9 

Scene II. — ^ Saloon in the Mansion. 

Enter Lord Tresham^ Lord Mertoun^ Austin^ and 
Guendolen. 

Tresham. I welcome you, Lord Mertoun, yet 
once more, 
To this ancestral roof of mine. Your name 
— Noble among the noblest in itself. 
Yet taking in your person, fame avers. 
New price and lustre, — (as that gem you wear. 
Transmitted from a hundred knightly breasts. 
Fresh chased and set and fixed by its last lord. 
Seems to re-kindle at the core) — your name 
Would win you welcome ! — 

Mertoun. Thanks ! 

Tres. — But add to that. 

The worthiness and grace and dignity 
Of your proposal for uniting both 
Our Houses even closer than respect 
Unites them now — add these, and you must 

grant 
One favour more, nor that the least, — to think 
The welcome I should give ; — 't is given ! My 

lord. 
My only brother, Austin : he 's the king's. 
Our Cousin, Lady Guendolen — betrothed 
To Austin : all are yours. 

Mert. I thank you — less 

6 hundred. A, thousand. 



15 



lo llBlot in tl^e '^tntt\)ton [act i. 

For the expressed commendings which your 

seal, 
And only that, authenticates — forbids 
My putting from me ... to my heart I take 
Your praise . . . but praise less claims my 

gratitude, 
Than the indulgent insight it implies 
Of what must needs be uppermost with one 
Who comes, like me, with the bare leave to 

ask. 
In weighed and measured unimpassioned words, 
A gift, which, if as calmly 't is denied. 
He must withdraw, content upon his cheek, 
Despair within his soul. That I dare ask 
Firmly, near boldly, near with confidence 
That gift, I have to thank you. Yes, Lord 

Tresham, 
I love your sister — as you M have one love 
That lady ... oh more, more I love her! 

Wealth, 
Rank, all the world thinks me, they 're yours, 

you know, 
To hold or part with, at your choice — but 

grant 
My true self, me without a rood of land, 

2, J as calmly "'tis denied. A, as quietly denied. 
31 yes. A omits. 

34 me. Italicized in A. Italics were, with few exceptions, dis- 
carded after the edition of 1849. 3^ ^^' Italicized in A. 



Scene II.] ^ BlOt iXt tf^t '^tUttiftOn 1 1 

A piece of gold, a name of yesterday, 
Grant me that lady, and you . . . Death or ♦ 
life ? 

Guendolen {apart to Austin). Why, this is 
loving, Austin ! 

Austin. He 's so young ! 

Guen. Young ? Old enough, I think, to 
half surmise 40 

He never had obtained an entrance here. 
Were all this fear and trembling needed. 

Aust. Hush! 

He reddens. 

Guen. Mark him, Austin; that 's true love ! 
Ours must begin again. 

Tres. We '11 sit, my lord. 

Ever with best desert goes diffidence. 45 

I may speak plainly nor be misconceived. 
That I am wholly satisfied with you 
On this occasion, when a falcon's eye 
Were dull compared with mine to search out 

faults. 
Is somewhat. Mildred's hand is hers to give so 
Or to refuse. 

Mert. But you, you grant my suit ? 

I have your word if hers ? 

Tres. My best of words 

If hers encourage you. I hope it will. 
Have you seen Lady Mildred, by the way? 

39 is. Italicized in A. 53 hope. A, trust, J 



1 2 ja llBlot in t^t '^ctttcl^eon [act i. 

Mert. I . . . I . . . our two demesnes, re- 
member, touch ; 55 
I have been used to wander carelessly 
After my stricken game : the heron roused 
Deep in my woods, has trailed its broken wing 
Thro' thicks and glades a mile in yours, — or 

else 
Some eyass ill-reclaimed has taken flight 60 

And lured me after her from tree to tree, 
I marked not whither. I have come upon 
The lady's wondrous beauty unaware. 
And — and then ... I have seen her. 

Guen, (aside to Austin), Note that mode 

Of faltering out that, when a lady passed, 65 

He, having eyes, did see her ! You had said — 
" On such a day I scanned her, head to foot ; 
" Observed a red, where red should not have 

been, 
" Outside her elbow ; but was pleased enough 
" Upon the whole." Let such irreverent talk 70 
Be lessoned for the future ! 

Tres. What 's to say 

May be said briefly. She has never known 
A mother's care ; I stand for father too. 
Her beauty is not strange to you, it seems — 
You cannot know the good and tender heart, 75 
Its girl's trust and its woman's constancy. 
How pure yet passionate, how calm yet kind. 



Scene II.] ^ BlOt itt t\)t '^tntt^tOXt 1 3 

How grave yet joyous, how reserved yet free 
As light where friends are — how imbued with 

lore 
The world most prizes, yet the simplest, yet 80 
The . . . one might know I talked of Mildred 

— thus 
We brothers talk ! 

Mert. I thank you. 

Tres. In a word, 

Control 's not for this lady ; but her wish 
To please me outstrips in its subtlety 
My power of being pleased : herself creates 85 

The want she means to satisfy. My heart 
Prefers your suit to her as 't were its own. 
Can I say more ? 

Mert. No more — thanks, thanks — no 

more ! 

Tres, This matter then discussed . . . 

Mert, — We ^11 waste no breath 

On aught less precious. I 'm beneath the roof 90 
Which holds her : while I thought of that, my 

speech 
To you would wander — as it must not do, 
Since as you favour me I stand or fall. 
I pray you suffer that I take my leave ! 

Tres, With less regret 't is suffered, that again 95 
We meet, I hope, so shortly. 

91 thought. A, think. 91 Which. A, That. 



14 ^ Blot in t^t '^tntt^eon [act i. 

Alert. We ? again ? — 

Ah, yes, forgive me — when shall . . . you will 

crown 
Your goodness by forthwith apprising me 
When . . . if . . . the lady will appoint a day 
For me to wait on you — and her. 

T'res, So soon loo 

As I am made acquainted with her thoughts 
On your proposal — howsoe'er they lean — 
A messenger shall bring you the result. 

Mert. You cannot bind me more to you, my 
lord. 
Farewell till we renew ... I trust, renew 105 
A converse ne'er to disunite again. 
Tres, So may it prove ! 

Mert, You, lady, you, sir, take 

My humble salutation ! 

Guen, and Just, Thanks ! 

Tres. Within there ! 

Servants enter. Tresham conducts Mer- 
toun to the door. Meantime Austin 
remarks^ 

Well, 
Here I have an advantage of the Earl, 
Confess now ! I'd not think that all was safe no 
Because my lady's brother stood my friend ! 
Why, he makes sure of her — " do you say, yes 

no /v. I italicized in A. 



Scene II.] jS llBlOt lit tl^t 'g^CUtCtltOn IS 

" She 'II not say, no," — what comes it to beside ? 
I should have prayed the brother, " speak this 

speech, 
" For Heaven's sake urge this on her — put in 

this — "5 

*' Forget not, as you M save me, t' other thing, — 
" Then set down what she says, and how she 

looks, 
" And if she smiles, and " (in an under breath) 
" Only let her accept me, and do you 
" And all the world refuse me, if you dare ! " 120 
Guen. That way you ' d take, friend Austin ? 

What a shame 
I was your cousin, tamely from the first 
Your bride, and all this fervour 's run to waste ! 
Do you know you speak sensibly to-day ? 
The Earl 's a fool. 

Just. Here 's Thorold. Tell him so ! 125 

Tres> {returning). Now, voices, voices! 'St! 

the lady 's first ! 
How seems he ? — seems he not . . . come, 

faith give fraud 
The mercy-stroke whenever they engage ! 
Down with fraud, up with faith ! How seems 

the Earl? 
A name ! a blazon ! if you knew their worth, 13© 
As you will never ! come — the Earl ? 

114 /. Italicized m A. 



1 6 ja 31Blot in tf)t '^mtctieon [act i. 

Guen. He *s young. 

Tres. What 's she ? an infant save in heart 
and brain. 
Young ! Mildred is fourteen, remark ! and 

you . . . 
Austin, how old is she ? 

Guen, There 's tact for you ! 

I meant that being young was good excuse 135 

If one should tax him . . . 
Tres. Well ? 

Guen. — With lacking wit. 

Tres. He lacked wit ? Where might he lack 

wit, so please you ? 
Guen. In standing straighter than the stew- 
ard's rod 
And making you the tiresomest harangue. 
Instead of slipping over to my side 140 

And softly whispering in my ear, " Sweet lady, 
'' Your cousin there will do me detriment 
" He little dreams of: he 's absorbed, I see, 
'^ In my old name and fame — be sure he '11 leave 
" My Mildred, when his best account of me 14s 
" Is ended, in full confidence I wear 
" My grandsire's periwig down either cheek. 
" I 'm lost unless your gentleness vouch- 
safes "... 
Tres. . . . " To give a best of best accounts, 
yourself, 

139 harangue. A, harangues. 



Scene II.] ^ HBlOt 1X1 t\)t '^tUttl^tOn 17 

Of me and my demerits/' You are right ! 150 

He should have said what now I say for him. 
Yon golden creature, will you help us all ? 
Here 's Austin means to vouch for much, but 
you 

— You are . . . what Austin only knows ! 

Come up. 
All three of us : she 's in the library 155 

No doubt, for the day 's wearing fast. Precede ! 

Guen. Austin, how we must — ! 

Tres. Must what ? Must speak truth, 

Malignant tongue ! Detect one fault in him ! 
I challenge you ! 

Guen, Witchcraft 's a fault in him, 

For you 're bewitched. 

Tres. What's urgent we obtain 160 

Is, that she soon receive him — say, to-mor- 
row — 
Next day at furthest. 

Guen. Ne'er instruct me ! 

Tres. Come ! 

— He 's out of your good graces, since forsooth, 
He stood not as he 'd carry us by storm 
With his perfections ! You 're for the com- 
posed ,65 

Manly assured becoming confidence ! 

152 Ton. A, You. B, Yon. Tou is probably correct. 
162 furthest. A, farthest. 



1 8 g Blot in cl)p '^mtcljeon [act i. 

— Get her to say, " to-morrow," and I '11 give 

you . . . 
I '11 give you black Urganda, to be spoiled 
With petting and snail-paces. Will you ? Come ! 

Scene III. — Mildred^ s chamber, A painted win- 
dow overlooks the park. Mildred and Guendolen. 

Guendolen. Now, Mildred, spare those pains. 
I have not left 
Our talkers in the library, and climbed 
The wearisome ascent to this your bower 
In company with you, — I have not dared . . . 
Nay, worked such prodigies as sparing you 5 

Lord Mertoun's pedigree before the flood. 
Which Thorold seemed in very act to tell 
- — Or bringing Austin to pluck up that most 
Firm-rooted heresy — -your suitor's eyes, 
He would maintain, were gray instead of 

blue — 10 

I think I brought him to contrition ! — Well, 
I have not done such things, (all to deserve 
A minute's quiet cousin's talk with you,) 
To be dismissed so coolly. 

Mildred. Guendolen ! 

What have I done ? what could suggest . . . 

Guen. There, there ! 15 

Do I not comprehend you 'd be alone 
To throw those testimonies in a heap. 

Overlooks . . . park. A, in the background. 



Scene III] ffilot lit t^t '^tUttiftOn IQ 

Thorold's enlargings, Austin's brevities, 
With that poor silly heartless Guendolen's 
Ill-timed misplaced attempted smartnesses — 20 
And sift their sense out ? now, I come to spare 

you 
Nearly a whole night's labour. Ask and have ! 
Demand, be answered ! Lack I ears and eyes ? 
Am I perplexed which side of the rock-table 
The Conqueror dined on when he landed first, 25 
Lord Mertoun's ancestor was bidden take — 
The bow-hand or the arrow-hand's great meed ? 
Mildred, the Earl has soft blue eyes ! 

Mil. My brother — 

Did he . . . you said that he received him 

well ? 
Guen. If I said only " well " I said not 

much. 30 

Oh, stay — which brother ? 

Mil. Thorold ! who — who else ? 

Guen. Thorold (a secret) is too proud by 

half,— 
Nay, hear me out — with us he 's even gentler 
Than we are with our birds. Of this great 

House 
The least retainer that e'er caught his glance 35 
Would die for him, real dying — no mere talk : 
And in the world, the court, if men would cite 
The perfect spirit of honour, Thorold's name 



20 ilBlot in tlje '^tntt\)ton [act i. 

Rises of its clear nature to their lips. 

But he should take men's homage, trust in it, 40 

And care no more about what drew it down. 

He has desert, and that, acknowledgment ; 

Is he content ? 

AliL You wrong him, Guendolen. 

Guen, He 's proud, confess ; so proud with 
brooding o'er 
The light of his interminable line, 45 

An ancestry with men all paladins. 
And women all . . . 

Mil. Dear Guendolen, 't is late ! 

When yonder purple pane the climbing moon 
Pierces, I know 't is midnight. 

Guen. Well, that Thorold 

Should rise up from such musings, and receive 50 
One come audaciously to graft himself 
Into this peerless stock, yet find no flaw, 
No slightest spot in such an one . . . 

Mil. Who finds 

A spot in Mertoun ? 

Guen. Not your brother ; therefore, 

Not the whole world. 

Mil. I am weary, Guendolen. 55 

Bear with me ! 

Guen. I am foolish. 

Mil. Oh no, kind ! 

But I would rest. 

55 I am. A, I 'm. 



Scene III.] g HBlOt iXl tl^t '^CUtC^eOtt 21 

Guen. Good night and rest to you ! 

I said how gracefully his mantle lay 
Beneath the rings of his light hair ? 

Mil. Brown hair. 

Guen. Brown ? why, it is brown : how could 

you know that ? ^° 

Mil. How ? did not you — Oh, Austin 't was, 
declared 
His hair was light, not brown — my head ! — 

and look. 
The moon-beam purpling the dark chamber ! 

Sweet, 
Good night ! 

Guen. Forgive me — sleep the soundlier for 
me ! Goings she turns suddenly. 

Mildred ! 
Perdition ! all 's discovered ! Thorold finds 65 

— That the Earl's greatest of all grandmothers 
Was grander daughter still — to that fair dame 
Whose garter slipped down at the famous dance ! 

Goes. 

Mil. Is she — can she be really gone at last ? 

My heart ! I shall not reach the window. 

Needs 70 

Must I have sinned much, so to suffer. 

She lifts the small lamp which is suspended 
before the Virgin^ s image in the win- 
dow^ and places it by the purple pane. 



22 llBlot in tl^t '^cutcl^eon [act i. 

There ! 
She returns to the seat in front. 
Mildred and Mertoun ! Mildred, with consent 
Of all the world and Thorold, Mertoun's bride ! 
Too late ! 'T is sweet to think of, sweeter still 
To hope for, that this blessed end soothes up 
The curse of the beginning ; but I know 
It comes too late : *t will sweetest be of all 
To dream my soul away and die upon. 

J noise without. 
The voice ! Oh why, why glided sin the snake 
Into the paradise Heaven meant us both ? 

The window opens softly. A low voice sings. 

There *s a woman like a dew-drop.^ she 's so purer 
than the purest ; 

And her noble heart ^s the noblest .^ yes^ and her sure 
faith 's the surest : 

And her eyes are dark and humid^ like the depth on 
depth of lustre 

Hid r the harebell^ while her tresses^ sunnier than 
the wild-grape cluster^ 

Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck^s rose- 
misted marble : 

Then her voice* s music . . . call it the welVs bub- 
bling^ the bird^s warble ! 

{A figure wrapped in a mantle appears 
at the window. 



Scene III] 5l5U>t itt t^e '^tutclieon 23 

And this woman says^ " My days were sunless and 

my nights were moonless^ 
^' Parched the pleasant April herbage^ and the larlCs 

hearfs outbreak tuneless^ 
'' If y^^ loved me not ! " And I who — (ah^ for 

words of flame /) adore her^ 
Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably 

before her — 90 

{He enters^ approaches her seaty and 
bends over her, 
I may enter at her portal soon^ as now her lattice 

takes me^ 
And by noontide as by midnight make her mine^ as 
hers she makes me ! 

{The Earl throws off his slouched hat 
and long cloak. 

My very heart sings, so I sing, Beloved ! 

Mil. Sit, Henry — do not take my hand ! 

Mertoun, 'T is mine. 

The meeting that appalled us both so much 95 
Is ended. 

Mil. What begins now ? 

Mert. Happiness 

Such as the world contains not. 

Mil. That is it. 

Our happiness would, as you say, exceed 
The whole world's best of blisses : we — do we 



24 31Blot in ti)t '^tntc\)ton [act l 

Deserve that ? Utter to your soul, what mine loo 
Long since, Beloved, has grown used to hear, 
Like a death-knell, so much regarded once. 
And so familiar now ; this will not be ! 

Afert. Oh, Mildred, have I met your brother's 
face ? 
Compelled myself — if not to speak untruth, 105 
Yet to disguise, to shun, to put aside 
The truth, as — what had e'er prevailed on me 
Save you, to venture ? Have I gained at last 
Your brother, the one scarer of your dreams, 
And waking thoughts' sole apprehension too? no 
Does a new life, like a young sunrise, break 
On the strange unrest of our night, confused 
With rain and stormy flaw — and will you see 
No dripping blossoms, no fire-tinted drops 
On each live spray, no vapour steaming up, 115 
And no expressless glory in the East ? 
When I am by you, to be ever by you. 
When I have won you and may worship you. 
Oh, Mildred, can you say " this will not be " ? 

JkfiL Sin has surprised us, so will punishment. 120 

Afert. No — me alone, who sinned alone ! 

Mil. The night 

You likened our past life to — was it storm 
Throughout to you then, Henry ? 

Mert. Of your life 

112 our. A, the. 



Scene III] jS llBlOt lU t^t '^tVLtt^tOXt 2$ 

I spoke — what am I, what my life, to waste 

A thought about when you are by me ? — you 125 

It was, I said my folly called the storm 

And pulled the night upon. ^T was day with me — 

Perpetual dawn with me. 

Mil. Come what, come will, 

You have been happy : take my hand ! 

Mert. {after a pause). How good 

Your brother is ! I figured him a cold — 130 

Shall I say, haughty man ? 

MiL They told me all. 

I know all. 

Mert. It will soon be over. 

Mil Over ? 

Oh, what is over ? what must I live through 
And say, " 't is over " ? Is our meeting over ? 
Have I received in presence of them all ^35 

The partner of my guilty love — with brow 
Trying to seem a maiden's brow — with lips 
Which make believe that when they strive to 

form 
Replies to you and tremble as they strive, 
It is the nearest ever they approached 140 

A stranger's . . . Henry, yours that stranger's 

... lip — 
With cheek that looks a virgin's, and that is . . . 

128 The comma after 'what is in all the editions, but is certainly 
an error. 

142 h. Italicized in A. 



26 llBlot in t^e '^cutcl^eon [acti. 

Ah, God, some prodigy of thine will stop 

This planned piece of deliberate wickedness 

In its birth even ! some fierce leprous spot 145 

Will mar the brow's dissimulating ! I 

Shall murmur no smooth speeches got by heart. 

But, frenzied, pour forth all our woeful story. 

The love, the shame, and the despair — with 

them 
Round me aghast as round some cursed fount 150 
That should spirt water, and spouts blood. I '11 

not 
. . . Henry, you do not wish that I should 

draw 
This vengeance down ? I '11 not affect a 

grace 
That 's gone from me — gone once, and gone 

for ever ! 
Mert. Mildred, my honour is your own. I '11 

share iS5 

Disgrace I cannot suffer by myself. 
A word informs your brother I retract 
This morning's offer ; time will yet bring forth 
Some better way of saving both of us. 
MiL I '11 meet their faces, Henry ! 
Mert. When ? to-morrow ! 160 

Get done with it ! 

MiL Oh, Henry, not to-morrow ! 

150 a% round. A, as men round. i6o to-morroiv / A, to-morrow ? 



Scene III] ^ BlOt itt ti)t '^CUtd^WU 27 

Next day ! I never shall prepare my words 
And looks and gestures sooner. — How you 

must 
Despise me ! 

Mert. Mildred, break it if you choose, 

A heart the love of you uplifted — still 165 

Uplifts, thro' this protracted agony. 
To heaven ! but Mildred, answer me, — first 

pace 
The chamber with me — once again — now, 

say 
Calmly the part, the . . . what it is of me 
You see contempt (for you did say contempt) 170 
— Contempt for you in ! I will pluck it ofF 
And cast it from me ! — but no — no, you '11 

not 
Repeat that ? — will you, Mildred, repeat that ? 
Mil. Dear Henry ! 

Mert, I was scarce a boy — e'en now 

What am I more ? And you were infantine 175 
When first I met you ; why, your hair fell 

loose 
On either side ! My fool's-cheek reddens now 
Only in the recalling how it burned 
That morn to see the shape of many a dream — 
You know we boys are prodigal of charms 180 

To her we dream of — I had heard of one, 
Had dreamed of her, and I was close to her, 



28 at Blot in t^t '^tntt^ton [act i. 

Might speak to her, might live and die her own, 
Who knew ? I spoke. Oh, Mildred, feel you 

not 
That now, while I remember every glance 185 

Of yours, each word of yours, with power to 

test 
And weigh them in the diamond scales of pride, 
Resolved the treasure of a first and last 
Heart's love shall have been bartered at its 

worth, 
— That now I think upon your purity 190 

And utter ignorance of guilt — your own 
Or other's guilt — the girlish undisguised 
Delight at a strange novel prize — (I talk 
A silly language, but interpret, you !) 
If I, with fancy at its full, and reason 195 

Scarce in its germ, enjoined you secrecy, 
If you had pity on my passion, pity 
On my protested sickness of the soul 
To sit beside you, hear you breathe, and watch 
Your eyelids and the eyes beneath — if you 200 
Accorded gifts and knew not they were gifts — - 
If I grew mad at last with enterprise 
And must behold my beauty in her bower 
Or perish — (I was ignorant of even 
My own desires — what then were you ?) if sor- 
row — 205 
Sin — if the end came — must I now renounce 



Scene III.] HBlot tU t^t '^CUttl^eOn 2g 

My reason, blind myself to light, say truth 
Is false and lie to God and my own soul ? 
Contempt were all of this ! 

Mil. Do you believe . 

Or, Henry, I '11 not wrong you — you believe 210 
That I was ignorant. I scarce grieve o'er 
The past. We '11 love on ; you will love me 
still. 

Mert, Oh, to love less what one has injured ! 
Dove, 
Whose pinion I have rashly hurt, my breast — 
Shall my heart's warmth not nurse thee into 

strength ? 215 

Flower I have crushed, shall I not care for 

thee ? 
Bloom o'er my crest, my fight-mark and device ! 
Mildred, I love you and you love me. 

Mil Go ! 

Be that your last word. I shall sleep to-night. 

Mert. This is not our last meeting ? 

Mil. One night more. 220 

Mert. And then — think, then ! 

Mil. Then, no sweet courtship-days, 

No dawning consciousness of love for us. 
No strange and palpitating births of sense 
From words and looks, no innocent fears and 

hopes, 
Reserves and confidences : morning 's over ! 225 



30 a Blot in tlje '^tttttl^eon [act i. 

Mert. How else should love's perfected noon- 
tide follow ? 
All the dawn promised shall the day perform. 

AfiL So may it be ! but 

You are cautious, Love ? 
Are sure that unobserved you scaled the walls ? 
Mert. Oh, trust me ! Then our final meet- 
ing's fixed 230 
To-morrow night ? 

MiL Farewell ! Stay, Henry . . . 

wherefore ? 
His foot is on the yew-tree bough ; the turf 
Receives him ; now the moonlight as he runs 
Embraces him — but he must go — is gone. 
Ah, once again he turns — thanks, thanks, my 

Love ! 235 

He 's gone. Oh, I '11 believe him every word ! 
I was so young, I loved him so, I had 
No mother, God forgot me, and I fell. 
There may be pardon yet : all 's doubt beyond. 
Surely the bitterness of death is past. 240 



ACT 11. 

Scene. — The Library. 
Enter Lord Tresham^ hastily. 

Tresham. This way ! In, Gerard, quick ! 

As Gerard enters^ Tresham secures the door. 

Now speak ! or, wait — 

I 'II bid you speak directly. Seats himself. 

Now repeat 
Firmly and circumstantially the tale 
You just now told me ; it eludes me ; either 
I did not listen, or the half is gone 
Away from me. How long have you lived here ? 
Here in my house, your father kept our woods 
Before you ? 

Gerard. — As his father did, my lord. 
I have been eating, sixty years almost, 
Your bread. 

Tres. Yes, yes. You ever were of all 

The servants in my father's house, I know. 
The trusted one. You '11 speak the truth. 

Ger. I '11 speak 

God's truth. Night after night . . . 

Tres. Since when ? 

Ger. At least 



32 ^ 315lot in t^t '^tntt})ton [act ii. 

A month — each midnight has some man ac- 
cess 
To Lady Mildred's chamber. 

Tres, Tush, " access" — 15 

No wide words like " access " to me ! 

Ger. He runs 

Along the woodside, crosses to the South, 
Takes the left tree that ends the avenue . . . 

Tres. The last great yew-tree ? 

Ger, You might stand upon 

The main boughs like a platform. Then he . . . 

Tres, Quick ! 20 

Ger. Climbs up, and, where they lessen at the 
top, 
— I cannot see distinctly, but he throws, 
I think — for this I do not vouch — a line 
That reaches to the lady's casement — 

Tres. — Which 

He enters not ! Gerard, some wretched fool 25 
Dares pry into my sister's privacy! 
When such are young, it seems a precious 

thing 
To have approached, — to merely have ap- 
proached. 
Got sight of, the abode of her they set 
Their frantic thoughts upon. He does not enter ? 3° 
Gerard ? 

Ger. There is a lamp that 's full i' the midst, 

31 r the midsto A, in the midst. 



Scene I.] g )15lot ttt t\)t '^tXltt^tOn 33 

Under a red square in the painted glass 
Of Lady Mildred's . . . 

Tres. Leave that name out ! Well ? 

That lamp ? 

Ger. — Is moved at midnight higher up 

To one pane — a small dark-blue pane ; he waits 35 
For that among the boughs : at sight of that, 
I see him, plain as I see you, my lord. 
Open the lady's casement, enter there . . . 

Tres. — And stay ? 

Ger. An hour, two hours. 

Tres. And this you saw 

Once ? — twice ? — quick ! 

Ger. Twenty times. 

Tres. And what brings you 40 

Under the yew-trees ? 

Ger. The first night I left 

My range so far, to track the stranger stag 
That broke the pale, I saw the man. 

Tres. Yet sent 

No cross-bow shaft through the marauder ? 

Ger. * But 

He came, my lord, the first time he was seen, 45 
In a great moonlight, light as any day. 
From hzdy Mildred's chamber. 

Tres. {after a pause^. You have no cause 

— Who could have cause to do my sister 
wrong ? 



34 ^ JlBlot in tlje '^tntt^ton [act h. 

G^r. Oh, my lord, only once — let me this 

once 
Speak what is on my mind ! Since first I noted 50 
All this, I 've groaned as if a fiery net 
Plucked me this way and that — fire if I turned 
To her, fire if I turned to you, and fire 
If down I flung myself and strove to die. 
The lady could not have been seven years old 55 
When I was trusted to conduct her safe 
Through the deer-herd to stroke the snow-white 

fawn 
I brought to eat bread from her tiny hand 
Within a month. She ever had a smile 
To greet me with — she ... if it could undo 60 
What 's done, to lop each limb from off this 

trunk . . . 
All that is foolish talk, not fit for you — 
I mean, I could not speak and bring her hurt 
For Heaven's compelling. But when I was fixed 
To hold my peace, each morsel of your food 65 
Eaten beneath your roof, my birth-place too. 
Choked me. I wish I had grown mad in doubts 
What it behoved me do. This morn it seemed 
Either I must confess to you, or die : 
Now it is done, I seem the vilest worm 70 

That crawls, to have betrayed my lady. 

Tres. No — 

No, Gerard ! 

68 do. A, to do. 



Scene I] HBlot iU t^t '^ttttC^eOU 35 

Ger. Let me go ! 

Tres. A man, you say : 

What man ? Young ? Not a vulgar hind ? What 
dress ? 

Ger. A slouched hat and a large dark foreign 
cloak 
Wraps his whole form ; even his face is hid ; 75 
But I should judge him young : no hind, be sure ! 

Tres. Why? 

Ger. He is ever armed : his sword projects 

Beneath the cloak. 

Tres. Gerard — I will not say 

No word, no breath of this ! 

Ger. Thanks, thanks, my lord ! Goes. 

Tres. (^paces the room. After a pause^ Oh, 
thought 's absurd ! — as with some mon- 
strous fact 80 
Which, when ill thoughts beset us, seems to give 
Merciful God that made the sun and stars. 
The waters and the green delights of earth. 
The lie ! I apprehend the monstrous fact — 
Yet know the maker of all worlds is good, 85 
And yield my reason up, inadequate 
To reconcile what yet I do behold — 
Blasting my sense! There's cheerful day outside: 
This is my library, and this the chair 

77 projects. Begins next line in A. 

80 Oh . . . fact. A, Oh, thought's absurd here! — like some 
monstrous fact. 81 Which. A, That. 82 God, A, Heaven. 



36 3i llBlot in t^t '^cutcl^eon [act il 

My father used to sit in carelessly 90 

After his soldier-fashion, while I stood 
Between his knees to question him : and here 
Gerard our gray retainer, — as he says, 
Fed with our food, from sire to son, an age, — 
Has told a story — I am to believe ! 95 

That Mildred . . . oh, no, no ! both tales are true. 
Her pure cheek's story and the forester's ! 
Would she, or could she, err — much less, con- 
found 
All guilts of treachery, of craft, of . . . Heaven 
Keep me within its hand ! — I will sit here 100 

Until thought settle and I see my course. 
Avert, oh God, only this woe from me ! 

jfs he sinks his head between his arms 
on the table^ Guendolen^s voice is heard 
at the door. 
Lord Tresham ! (^She knocks.^ Is Lord Tresham 
there ? 

Treshaniy hastily turnings pulls down the 
first book above him and opens it. 
Tres. Come in ! (^She enters,^ Ha, Guendo- 

leri ! — good morning. 
Guen. Nothing more ? 

Tres. What should I say more ? 
Guen. Pleasant question ! more ? 105 

This more. Did I besiege poor Mildred's brain 

loi settle. A, settles. 104 Ha. A, Ah. 



Scene I] ^ BlOt lU tl^t '^CUtd^eOtt 37 

Last night till close on morning with " the Earl," 
" The Earl " — whose worth did I asseverate 
Till I am very fain to hope that . . . Thorold, 
What is all this ? You are not well ! 

Tres. Who, I ?iio 

You laugh at me. 

Guen. Has what I 'm fain to hope. 

Arrived then ? Does that huge tome show some 

blot 
In the Earl's 'scutcheon come no longer back 
Than Arthur's time ? 

Tres, When left you Mildred's chamber ? 

Guen. Oh, late enough, I told you ! The 
main thing "5 

To ask is, how I left her chamber, — sure. 
Content yourself, she '11 grant this paragon 
Of Earls no such ungracious . . . 

Tres, Send her here ! 

Guen. Thorold ? 

Tres. I mean — acquaint her, Guendolen, 

— But mildly ! 

Guen. Mildly? 

Tres. Ah, you guessed aright ! 120 

I am not well : there is no hiding it. 
But tell her I would see her at her leisure — 
That is, at once ! here in the library ! 
The passage in that old Italian book 
We hunted for so long is found, say, found — 125 

116 ker. A, the. 



38 ja llBlot in c^0 '^ttttcljcon [act ii. 

And if I let it slip again . . , you see, 
That she must come — and instantly ! 

Guen. I '11 die 

Piecemeal, record that, if there have not gloomed 
Some blot i' the 'scutcheon ! 

Tres. Go ! or, Guendolen, 

Be you at call, — with Austin, if you choose, — 130 
In the adjoining gallery ! There, go ! 

Guendolen goes. 
Another lesson to me ! You might bid 
A child disguise his heart's sore, and conduct 
Some sly investigation point by point 
With a smooth brow, as well as bid me catch 135 
The inquisitorial cleverness some praise. 
If you had told me yesterday, " There 's one 
" You needs must circumvent and practise with, 
" Entrap by policies, if you would worm 
" The truth out : and that one is — Mildred ! '' 

There, 140 

There — reasoning is thrown away on it ! 
Prove she 's unchaste . . . why, you may after 

prove 
That she's a poisoner, traitress, what you will ! 
Where I can comprehend nought, nought 's to 

say. 
Or do, or think. Force on me but the first 145 
Abomination, — then outpour all plagues. 
And I shall ne'er make count of them. 



Scene L] ^ JlBlot itX tl^t '^tUttl^tOn 39 

Enter Mildred, 
Mildred. What book 

Is it I wanted, Thorold ? Guendolen 
Thought you were pale ; you are not pale. That 

book ? 
That 's Latin surely. 

Tres. Mildred, here's a line, 150 

(Don't lean on me : I '11 English it for you) 
" Love conquers all things." What love con- 
quers them ? 
What love should you esteem — best love ? 
Mil, True love. 

Tres, I mean, and should have said, whose 
love is best 
Of all that love or that profess to love ? 155 

Mil, The list 's so long : there 's father's, 

mother's, husband's . . . 
Tres, Mildred, I do believe a brother's love 
For a sole sister must exceed them all. 
For see now, only see ! there 's no alloy 
Of earth that creeps into the perfect' st gold 160 
Of other loves — no gratitude to claim; 
You never gave her life, not even aught 
That keeps life — never tended her, instructed. 
Enriched her — so, your love can claim no right 
O'er her save pure love's claim : that 's what I 

call 165 

162 aught. A, the dross. 165 O^er her. A, O'er her*s. 



40 llBlot in tf^t '^cutcl^eon [act il 

Freedom from earthliness. You '11 never hope 
To be such friends, for instance, she and you, 
As when you hunted cowslips in the woods 
Or played together in the meadow hay. 
Oh, yes — with age, respect comes, and your 

worth 170 

Is felt, there 's growing sympathy of tastes. 
There 's ripened friendship, there 's confirmed 

esteem : 
— Much head these make against the new- 
comer ! 
The startling apparition, the strange youth — 
Whom one half-hour's conversing with, or, say, 175 
Mere gazing at, shall change (beyond all change 
This Ovid ever sang about) your soul 
. . . Her soul, that is, — the sister's soul ! 

With her 
'T was winter yesterday ; now, all is warmth, 
The green leaf's springing and the turtle's voice, 180 
'' Arise and come away ! " Come whither ? — 

far 
Enough from the esteem, respect, and all 
The brother's somewhat insignificant 
Array of rights ! All which he knows before. 
Has calculated on so long ago ! 185 

I think such love, (apart from yours and mine,) 
Contented with its little term of life, 

178 Her, Italicized in A. 



Scene I.] JlBlot ItT tl^e '^Utd^eOtt 4 1 

Intending to retire betimes, aware 
How soon the background must be place for it, 
— I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds 190 
All the world's love in its unworldliness. 

Mil. What is this for ? 

Tres. This, Mildred, is it for ! 

Or, no, I cannot go to it so soon ! 
That 's one of many points my haste left out — 
Each day, each hour throws forth its silk-slight 

film 195 

Between the being tied to you by birth. 
And you, until those slender threads compose 
A web that shrouds her daily life of hopes 
And fears and fancies, all her life, from yours : 
So close you live and yet so far apart ! 200 

And must I rend this web, tear up, break down 
The sweet and palpitating mystery 
That makes her sacred ? You — for you I mean, 
Shall I speak, shall I not speak ? 

Mil. Speak ! 

Tres. I will. 

Is there a story men could — any man 205 

Could tell of you, you would conceal from me ? 
I '11 never think there 's falsehood on that lip. 
Say " There is no such story men could tell," 
And I '11 believe you, though I disbelieve 
The world — the world of better men than I, no 

191 lo've. A, loves. 193 Or, no. A, Oh, no. 



42 lIBlot in t\)t '^tntt^ton [act n. 

And women such as I suppose you. Speak ! 
{After a pause^ Not speak ? Explain then ! 

Clear it up then ! Move 
Some of the miserable weight away 
That presses lower than the grave ! Not speak ? 
Some of the dead weight, Mildred ! Ah, if I 215 
Could bring myself to plainly make their charge 
Against you ! Must I, Mildred ? Silent still ? 
{After a pause.) Is there a gallant that has night 

by night 
Admittance to your chamber ? 

{After a pause.) Then, his name ! 
Till now, I only had a thought for you : 220 

But now, — his name ! 

Mil. Thorold, do you devise 

Fit expiation for my guilt, if fit 
There be ! 'T is nought to say that I '11 endure 
And bless you, — that my spirit yearns to purge 
Her stains ofF in the fierce renewing fire : 225 

But do not plunge me into other guilt ! 
Oh, guilt enough ! I cannot tell his name. 
Tres. Then judge yourself! How should I 

act ? Pronounce ! 
Mil. Oh, Thorold, you must never tempt me 

thus ! 
To die here in this chamber by that sword 230 

Would seem like punishment : so should I glide. 
Like an arch-cheat, into extremest bliss ! 

212 Clear . , . then. A, Clear up all, then. 



Scene I] ^ HBlot tlT tl^C '^tUtti^tOXt 43 

'T were easily arranged for me : but you — 
What would become of you ? 

7 res. And what will now 

Become of me ? I '11 hide your shame and mine 235 
From every eye; the dead must heave their 

hearts 
Under the marble of our chapel-floor ; 
They cannot rise and blast you. You may wed 
Your paramour above our mother's tomb; 
Our mother cannot move from'neath your foot. 240 
We too will somehow wear this one day out : 
But with to-morrow hastens here — the Earl ! 
The youth without suspicion . . . face can 

come 
From Heaven, and heart from . . . whence 

proceed such hearts ? 
I have despatched last night at your command 245 
A missive bidding him present himself 
To-morrow — here — thus much is said ; the 

rest 
Is understood as if 't were written down — 
" His suit finds favour in your eyes.'' Now dic- 
tate 
This morning's letter that shall countermand 250 
Last night's — do dictate that ! 

Mil. But, Thorold — if 

I will receive him as I said ? 

243 face. A, faces. 



44 a llBlot in tl^e '^cutclieon [acth. 

Tres. The Earl ? 

Mil. I will receive him. 

Tres. {starting up). Ho there ! Guendolen ! 

Guendolen and Austin enter. 

And, Austin, you are welcome, too ! Look 

there ! 
The woman there ! 

Austin and Guendolen. How ? Mildred ? 

Tres. Mildred once ! 155 

Now the receiver night by night, when sleep 
Blesses the inmates of her father's house, 
— I say, the soft sly wanton that receives 
Her guilt's accomplice 'neath this roof which 

holds 
You, Guendolen, you, Austin, and has held 260 
A thousand Treshams — never one like her ! 
No lighter of the signal-lamp her quick 
Foul breath near quenches in hot eagerness 
To mix with breath as foul ! no loosener 
O' the lattice, practised in the stealthy tread, 265 
The low voice and the noiseless come-and-go ! 
Not one composer of the bacchant's mien 
Into — what you thought Mildred's, in a word ! 
Know her ! 

Guen. Oh, Mildred, look to me, at least ! 

252 The Earl. Italicized in A. 

265 O* the lattice. A, Of the lattice. 



Scene I.] ^ HBlOt IXt tl^t '^tUtt^tOXt 45 

Thorold — she 's dead, I 'd say, but that she 

stands a?® 

Rigid as stone and whiter ! 

Tres. You have heard . . . 

Guen. Too much ! You must proceed no 
further. 

Mil. Yes — 

Proceed ! All 's truth. Go from me ! 

Tres. All is truth, 

She tells you ! Well, you know, or ought to 

know. 
All this I would forgive in her. I 'd con 275 

Each precept the harsh world enjoins, I 'd take 
Our ancestors' stern verdicts one by one, 
I 'd bind myself before them to exact 
The prescribed vengeance — and one word of 

hers. 
The sight of her, the bare least memory 280 

Of Mildred, my one sister, my heart's pride 
Above all prides, my all in all so long. 
Would scatter every trace of my resolve. 
What were it silently to waste away 
And see her waste away from this day forth, 285 
Two scathed things with leisure to repent. 
And grow acquainted with the grave, and die 
Tired out if not at peace, and be forgotten ? 
It were not so impossible to bear. 

283 Would scatter. A, Had scattered. 
289 It ivere not. A, This were not. 



46 ^ llBlot in t^t '^cttttl^eon [act n. 

But this — that, fresh from last night's pledge 

renewed 290 

Of love with the successful gallant there, 
She calmly bids me help her to entice. 
Inveigle an unconscious trusting youth 
Who thinks her all that 's chaste and good and 
pure, 

— Invites me to betray him . . . who so fit 295 
As honour's self to cover shame's arch-deed ? 

— That she'll receive Lord Mertoun — (her 

own phrase) — 
This, who could bear ? Why, you have heard 

of thieves, 
Stabbers, the earth's disgrace, who yet have 

laughed, 
" Talk not to me of torture — I '11 betray 300 

"No comrade I've pledged faith to!" — you 

have heard 
Of wretched women — all but Mildreds — tied 
By wild illicit ties to losels vile 
You 'd tempt them to forsake ; and they '11 reply 
" Gold, friends, repute, I left for him, I find 305 
" In him, why should I leave him then for gold, 
" Repute or friends ? " — and you have felt your 

heart 
Respond to such poor outcasts of the world 

292 S^e. A, She '11. 295 Invites. A, Invite. 

297 ker oivn. A, that 's her. 

300 to me of torture. A, of tortures tome, 

308 such poor outcasts. A, these poor outcasts. 



Scene I] jS jBlot lu t^t '^cutcl^eon 47 

A*s to SO many friends ; bad as you please, 
You've felt they were God's men and women 

still, 310 

So, not to be disowned by you. But she 
That stands there, calmly gives her lover up 
As means to wed the Earl that she may hide 
Their intercourse the surelier : and, for this, 
I curse her to her face before you all. 315 

Shame hunt her from the earth ! Then Heaven 

do right 
To both ! It hears me now — shall judge her 
then ! 

Js Mildred faints and falls ^ Tresham 

rushes out, 

Aust. Stay, Tresham, we '11 accompany you ! 

Guen. We ? 

What, and leave Mildred ? We ? Why, where 's 

my place 
But by her side, and where yours but by mine ? 320 
Mildred — one word ! Only look at me, then ! 
Just. No, Guendolen ! I echo Thorold's 
voice. 
She is unworthy to behold . . . 

Guen. Us two ? 

If you spoke on reflection, and if I 
Approved your speech — if you (to put the 

thing 325 

314 surelier. A, safelier. this^ A, that. 
320 ivhere. A, where 's. 



48 ^ llBlot in ti)t '^mtc^eon [act n. 

At lowest) you the soldier, bound to make 
The king's cause yours and fight for it, and 

throw 
Regard to others of its right or wrong, 
— If with a death-white woman you can help. 
Let alone sister, let alone a Mildred, 33^ 

You left her — or if I, her cousin, friend 
This morning, playfellow but yesterday. 
Who said, or thought at least a thousand times, 
" I 'd serve you if I could," should now face 

round 
And say, "Ah, that's only to signify 335 

" I 'd serve you while you 're fit to serve your- 
self : 
'' So long as fifty eyes await the turn 
" Of yours to forestall its yet half- formed wish, 
" I '11 proffer my assistance you '11 not need — 
'' When every tongue is praising you, I '11 join 34© 
'' The praisers' chorus — when you 're hemmed 

about 
'' With lives between you and detraction — lives 
'' To be laid down if a rude voice, rash eye, 
" Rough hand should violate the sacred ring 
" Their worship throws about you, — then in- 
deed, 345 
" Who '11 stand up for you stout as I ? " If so 
We said, and so we did, — not Mildred there 

333 ^ ho said. A, Who 've said. 335 only to. A, to only. 



Scene L] ^ ^Blot iXt t^t '^CtttCtjeOTT 49 

Would be unworthy to behold us both, 
But we should be unworthy, both of us. 
To be beheld by — by — your meanest dog, 350 
Which, if that sword were broken in your face 
Before a crowd, that badge torn off your breast. 
And you cast out with hooting and contempt, 
— Would push his way thro' all the hooters, gain 
Your side, go off with you and all your shame 355 
To the next ditch you choose to die in ! Austin, 
Do you love me ? Here 's Austin, Mildred, — 

here 's 
Your brother says he does not believe half — - 
No, nor half that — of all he heard ! He says, 
Look up and take his hand ! 

Just. Look up and take 360 

My hand, dear Mildred ! 

Mil. I — I was so young ! 

Beside, I loved him, Thorold — and I had 
No mother ; God forgot me : so, I fell. 

Guen. Mildred! 

Mil. Require no further ! Did I dream 

That I could palliate what is done ? All 's true. 365 
Now, punish me ! A woman takes my hand ? 
Let go my hand ! You do not know, I see. 
I thought that Thorold told you. 

351 your face. A, your sight. 

353 hooting. A, hootings. 356 choose. A, chose. 

358 does not belt e've half. A, don't believe one half. 

359 he heard. A, he 's heard. 



50 ^ Bloc in tift '^tntt^ton [act ii. 

Guen. What is this ? 

Where start you to ? 

Mil. Oh, Austin, loosen me ! 

You heard the whole of it — your eyes were 

worse, 370 

In their surprise, than Thorold's ! Oh, unless 
You stay to execute his sentence, loose 
My hand ! Has Thorold gone, and are you here ? 

Guen. Here, Mildred, we two friends of yours 
will wait 
Your bidding ; be you silent, sleep or muse ! 375 
Only, when you shall want your bidding done. 
How can we do it if we are not by ? 
Here 's Austin waiting patiently your will ! 
One spirit to command, and one to love 
And to believe in it and do its best, 380 

Poor as that is, to help it — why, the world 
Has been won many a time, its length and 

breadth. 
By just such a beginning ! 

Afil. I believe 

If once I threw my arms about your neck 
And sunk my head upon your breast, that I 385 
Should weep again. 

Guen. Let go her hand now, Austin ! 

Wait for me. Pace the gallery and think 
On the world's seemings and realities. 
Until I call you. Justin goes. 

373 go^'- A, left. 



Scene I.] ^ HBlot tit tl^e '^CUtd^eOtt 5 1 

MiL No — I cannot weep. 

No more tears from this brain — no sleep — no 

tears ! 39° 

O Guendolen, I love you ! 

Guen. Yes : and " love " 

Is a short word that says so very much ! 
It says that you confide in me. 

MiL Confide ! 

Guen. Your lover's name, then ! I 've so 
much to learn, 
Ere I can work in your behalf! 

MiL My friend, 395 

You know I cannot tell his name. 

Guen» At least 

He is your lover ? and you love him too ? 

MiL Ah, do you ask me that ? — but I am 
fallen 
So low ! 

Guen. You love him still, then ? 

MiL My sole prop 

Against the guilt that crushes me ! I say, 400 

Each night ere I lie down, " I was so young — 
" I had no mother, and I loved him so ! '' 
And then God seems indulgent, and I dare 
Trust him my soul in sleep. 

Guen, How could you let us 

E'en talk to you about Lord Mertoun then ? 405 

397 is. Italicized in A. 



52 ;a llBlot in tlje '^tntt^^ton [act ii. 

Mil. There is a cloud around me. 

Guen. But you said 

You would receive his suit in spite of this ? 

Mil. I say there is a cloud . . . 

Guen. No cloud to me ! 

Lord Mertoun and your lover are the same ! 

Mil. What maddest fancy . . . 

Guen. (calling aloud). Austin ! (spare your 
pains — 410 

When I have got a truth, that truth I keep) — 

Mil. By all you love, sweet Guendolen, for- 
bear ! 
Have I confided in you . • . 

Guen. Just for this ! 

Austin ! — Oh, not to guess it at the first ! 
But I did guess it — that is, I divined, 415 

Felt by an instinct how it was : why else 
Should I pronounce you free from all that heap 
Of sins which had been irredeemable ? 
I felt they were not yours — what other way 
Than this, not yours ? The secret 's wholly mine ! 420 

Mil. If you would see me die before his 
face . . . 

Guen. I M hold my peace ! And if the Earl 
returns 
To-night ? 

Mil. Ah Heaven, he 's lost ! 

Guen. I thought so. Austin ! 

415' did. Italicized in A. 



Scene I.] ^ HBlOt tlT t^t '^CUtd^WU 53 

Enter Austin. 

Oh, where have you been hiding ? 

Just. Thorold 's gone, 

I know not how, across the meadow-land. 4^5 

I watched him till I lost him in the skirts 
O' the beech-wood. 

Guen. Gone ? All thwarts us. 

Mil. Thorold too ? 

Guen. I have thought. First lead this Mildred 
to her room. 
Go on the other side ; and then we '11 seek 
Your brother : and I '11 tell you, by the way, 43^ 
The greatest comfort in the world. You said 
There was a clue to all. Remember, Sweet, 
He said there was a clue ! I hold it. Come ! 

427 0' the. A, Of the. 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — The end of the Yew-tree Avenue 
under Mildred^ s window, A light seen through 
a central red pane. 

Enter Tresham through the trees. 

Again here ! But I cannot lose myself. 

The heath — the orchard — I have traversed 

glades 
And dells and bosky paths which used to lead 
Into green wild-wood depths, bewildering' 
My boy's adventurous step. And now they tend 
Hither or soon or late ; the blackest shade 
Breaks up, the thronged trunks of the trees ope 

wide, 
And the dim turret I have fled from, fronts 
Again my step ; the very river put 
Its arm about me and conducted me 
To this detested spot. Why then, I '11 shun 
Their will no longer : do your will with me ! 
Oh, bitter ! To have reared a towering scheme 
Of happiness, and to behold it razed. 
Were nothing : all men hope, and see their hopes 
Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew. 
But I ... to hope that from a line like ours 
No horrid prodigy like this would spring. 



Scene L] ^ BlOt IXt t^f '^Ctttd^eOU 55 

Were just as though I hoped that from these old 
Confederates against the sovereign day, ^o 

Children of older and yet older sires, 
Whose living coral berries dropped, as now 
On me, on many a baron's surcoat once. 
On many a beauty's wimple — would proceed 
No poison-tree, to thrust, from hell its root, ^5 
Hither and thither its strange snaky arms. 
Why came I here ? What must I do ? (^ bell 

strikes.) A bell ? 
Midnight! and 't is at midnight . . . Ah, I 

catch 
— Woods, river, plains, I catch your meaning 

now. 
And I obey you ! Hist ! This tree will serve. 3^ 
He retires behind one of the trees. After 
a pause^ enter Mertoun cloaked as 
before. 
Mertoun. Not time ! Beat out thy last volup- 
tuous beat 
Of hope and fear, my heart ! I thought the clock 
r the chapel struck as I was pushing through 
The ferns. And so I shall no more see rise 
My love-star ! Oh, no matter for the past ! 35 

So much the more delicious task to watch 
Mildred revive : to pluck out, thorn by thorn. 
All traces of the rough forbidden path 
My rash love lured her to ! Each day must see 

33 /* the chapel. A, In the chapel. 36 fo ivatch. A, to see. 



56 ^ llBlot in t^t '^ttttcl^eon [act m. 

Some fear of hers effaced, some hope renewed : 40 
Then there will be surprises, unforeseen 
Delights in store. I '11 not regret the past. 

T'he light is placed above in the purple pane. 
And see, my signal rises, Mildred's star ! 
I never saw it lovelier than now 
It rises for the last time. If it sets, 45 

'T is that the re-assuring sun may dawn. 

As he prepares to ascend the last tree of 

the avenue^ Tresham arrests his arm. 

Unhand me — peasant, by your grasp ! Here 's 

gold. 
'T was a mad freak of mine. I said I 'd pluck 
A branch from the white-blossomed shrub beneath 
The casement there. Take this, and hold your 

peace. 5^ 

Tres, Into the moonlight yonder, come with 
me ! 
Out of the shadow ! 

Mert. I am armed, fool ! 

Tres. Yes, 

Or no ? You '11 come into the light, or no ? 
My hand is on your throat — refuse ! — 

Mert, That voice ! 

Where have I heard ... no — that was mild 

and slow. 55 

I '11 come with you. They advance. 

46 daivn. A, rise. 55 that. Italicized in A. 

56 advance. A, advance to front of stage. 



Scene I] ^ nBlot lu t\)t '^cutc^ieon 57 

Tres. You 're armed : that 's well. De- 

clare 
Your name : who are you ? 

Mert. (Tresham ! — she is lost !) 

Tres. Oh, silent ? Do you know, you bear 
yourself 
Exactly as, in curious dreams I 've had 
How felons, this wild earth is full of, look 60 

When they 're detected, still your kind has 

looked ! 
The bravo holds an assured countenance, 
The thief is voluble and plausible. 
But silently the slave of lust has crouched 
When I have fancied it before a man. ^5 

Your name ! 

Mert, I do conjure Lord Tresham — ay, 
Kissing his foot, if so I might prevail — 
That he for his own sake forbear to ask 
My name ! As heaven 's above, his future weal 
Or woe depends upon my silence ! Vain ! 70 

I read your white inexorable face. 
Know me. Lord Tresham ! 

He throws off his disguises. 

Tres. Mertoun ! 

{After a pause ^ Draw now ! 

Mert. Hear me 

But speak first ! 

Tres. Not one least word on your life ! 

56 Declare. A omits. 



58 llBlot in t\)t '^tntt^ton [act m. 

Be sure that I will strangle in your throat 

The least word that informs me how you live 75 

And yet seem what you seem ! No doubt 't was 

you 
Taught Mildred still to keep that face and sin. 
We should join hands in frantic sympathy 
If you once taught me the unteachable, 
Explained how you can live so, and so lie. 80 

With God's help I retain, despite my sense, 
The old belief — a life like yours is still 
Impossible. Now draw ! 

Mert, Not for my sake, 

Do I entreat a hearing — for your sake. 
And most, for her sake ! 

Tres. Ha ha, what should I 85 

Know of your ways ? A miscreant like yourself. 
How must one rouse his ire ? A blow ? — that 's 

pride 
No doubt, to him ! One spurns him, does one 

not? 
Or sets the foot upon his mouth, or spits 
Into his face ! Come ! Which, or all of these ? 90 
Mert. 'Twixt him and me and Mildred, Hea- 
ven be judge ! 
Can I avoid this ? Have your will, my lord ! 

He draws and^ after a few passes^ falls. 

76 seem lu hat you seem. A, are what you are. 
81 retain. A, will keep. .87 pride. A, great. 



Scene I] ^ BlOt lit tl^t '^CUtCtieOU 59 

Tres. You are not hurt ? 

Alert, You '11 hear me now ! 

Tres. But rise ! 

Mert. Ah, Tresham, say I not " you '11 hear 
me now ! " 
And what procures a man the right to speak 95 
In his defence before his fellow man, 
But — I suppose — the thought that presently 
He may have leave to speak before his God 
His whole defence ? 

Tres. Not hurt ? It cannot be ! 

You made no effort to resist me. Where 100 

Did my sword reach you ? Why not have re- 
turned 
My thrusts ? Hurt where ? 

Mert. My lord — 

Tres. How young he is ! 

Mert. Lord Tresham,I am very young,and yet 
I have entangled other lives with mine. 
Do let me speak, and do believe my speech ! 105 
That when I die before you presently, — 

Tres. Can you stay here till I return with 
help ? 

Mert. Oh, stay by me! When I was less 
than boy 
I did you grievous wrong and knew it not — 
Upon my honour, knew it not ! Once known, no 
I could not find what seemed a better way 



6o g Blot in t\)t '^tntt^ton [act m 

To right you than I took : my life — you feel 

How less than nothing were the giving you 

The life you 've taken ! But I thought my way 

The better — only for your sake and hers : 115 

And as you have decided otherwise, 

Would I had an infinity of lives 

To offer you ! Now say — instruct me — think ! 

Can you, from the brief minutes I have left, 

Eke out my reparation ? Oh think — think ! 120 

For I must wring a partial — dare I say. 

Forgiveness from you, ere I die ? 

Tres. I do 

Forgive you. 

Mert. Wait and ponder that great word ! 

Because, if you forgive me, I shall hope 
To speak to you of — Mildred ! 

Tres. Mertoun, haste 125 

And anger have undone us. 'Tis not you 
Should tell me for a novelty you 're young. 
Thoughtless, unable to recall the past. 
Be but your pardon ample as my own ! 

Mert, Ah, Tresham, that a sword-stroke and 
a drop 130 

Of blood or two, should bring all this about ! 
Why, 't was my very fear of you, my love 
Of you — (what passion like a boy's for one 

113 ivere the giving. A, had been giving. Il6 And. A, But. 
119 from the. A, from out the. 133 passion. A, passion *s. 



Scene I.] ^ BlOt lU tl^t '^CtttC^Wn 6 1 

Like you ?) — that ruined me ! I dreamed of 

you — 
You, all accomplished, courted everywhere, 135 
The scholar and the gentleman. I burned 
To knit myself to you : but I was young, 
And your surpassing reputation kept me 
So far aloof ! Oh, wherefore all that love ? 
With less of love, my glorious yesterday 140 

Of praise and gentlest words and kindest looks. 
Had taken place perchance six months ago. 
Even now, how happy we had been ! And yet 
Tknow the thought of this escaped you, Tre- 

sham ! 
Let me look up into your face; I feel 145: 

'T is changed above me : yet my eyes are glazed. 
Where ? where ? 

j^s he endeavours to raise himself^ his eye 
catches the lamp. 

Ah, Mildred ! What will Mildred do ? 
Tresham, her life is bound up in the life 
That 's bleeding fast away ! I '11 live — must 

live, — 
There, if you '11 only turn me I shall live 15Q 

And save her ! Tresham — oh, had you but 

heard ! 
Had you but heard ! What right was yours to 

set 

141 gentlest. A, gentle. 152 ivas yours. A, have you. 



62 g iiBlot in tl^c '^ctttcl^eon [act m. 

The thoughtless foot upon her life and mine. 
And then say, as we perish, " Had I thought, 
'' All had gone otherwise " ? We 've sinned and 

die: 15$ 

Never you sin. Lord Tresham ! for you '11 die, 
And God will judge you. 

Tres. Yes, be satisfied ! 

That process is begun. 

Mert. And she sits there 

Waiting for me ! Now, say you this to her — 
You, not another — say, I saw him die 160 

As he breathed this, " I love her " — you don't 

know 
What those three small words mean ! Say ; lov- 
ing her 
Lowers me down the bloody slope to death 
With memories ... I speak to her, not you. 
Who had no pity, will have no remorse, 165 

Perchance intend her . . . Die along with me. 
Dear Mildred ! 't is so easy, and you '11 'scape 
So much unkindness ! Can I lie at rest. 
With rude speech spoken to you, ruder deeds 
Done to you ? — heartless men shall have my 

heart, 170 

And I tied down with grave-clothes and the 
worm, 

156 Never you sin. A italicized j;o«, 
1 70 sAall ha've. A, to have. 



Scene I] ^ ffilot iU t^t '^tVLtt^tOXt 63 

Aware, perhaps, of every blow — oh God ! — 
Upon those lips — yet of no power to tear 
The felon stripe by stripe ! Die, Mildred ! Leave 
Their honourable world to them ! For God 175 
We 're good enough, though the world casts us 
out. J whistle is heard. 

Tres. Ho, Gerard! 

Enter Gerard^ Austin and Guendolen^ with lights. 

No one speak ! You see what 's done. 
I cannot bear another voice. 

Mert. There 's light — 

Light all about me, and I move to it, 
Tresham, did I not tell you — did you not i8o 

Just promise to deliver words of mine 
To Mildred ? 

Tres. I will bear those words to her. 

Mert. Now? 

Tres. Now. Lift you the body, and leave me 
The head. 

As they have half raised Mertoun^ he 
turns suddenly. 
Mert. I knew they turned me : turn me not 
from her ! 
There ! stay you ! there ! Dies. 

Guen. (after a pause^ Austin, remain you 
here 185 

183 Lift you the body. A, Lift you the body, Gerard. 



64 ^ ilBlot in tlie '^tutctieon [act m. 

With Thorold until Gerard comes with help : 
Then lead him to his chamber. I must go 
To Mildred. 

Tres. Guendolen, I hear each word 

You utter. Did you hear him bid me give 
His message ? Did you hear my promise? I, 190 
And only I, see Mildred. 

Guen. She will die. 

Tres, Oh no, she will not die ! I dare not 
hope 
She'll die. What ground have you to think 

she'll die? 
Why, Austin 's with you ! 

Just, Had we but arrived 

Before you fought ! 

Tres. There was no fight at all. 195 

He let me slaughter him — the boy ! I '11 trust 
The body there to you and Gerard — thus ! 
Now bear him on before me. 

Just. Whither bear him ? 

Tres. Oh, to my chamber ! When we meet 
there next. 
We shall be friends. 

They hear out the body of Mertoun. 

Will she die, Guendolen ? 200 

Guen. Where are you taking me ? 

Tres. He fell just here. 

196 the boy ! A, these boys ! 



Scene I.] g BlOt lU t^t '^tntt^tOXt 65 

Now answer me. Shall you in your whole life 
— You who have nought to do with Mertoun's 

fate, 
Now you have seen his breast upon the turf, 
Shall you e'er walk this way if you can help ? 205 
When you and Austin wander arm-in-arm 
Through our ancestral grounds, will not a shade 
Be ever on the meadow and the waste — 
Another kind of shade than when the night 
Shuts the woodside with all its whispers up ? 210 
But will you ever so forget his breast 
As carelessly to cross this bloody turf 
Under the black yew avenue ? That 's well ! 
You turn your head : and I then ? — 

Guen, What is done 

Is done. My care is for the living. Thorold, 215 
Bear up against this burden : more remains 
To set the neck to ! 

Tres. Dear and ancient trees 

My fathers planted, and I loved so well ! 
What have I done that, like some fabled crime 
Of yore, lets loose a Fury leading thus 220 

Her miserable dance amidst you all ? 
Oh, never more for me shall winds intone 
With all your tops a vast antiphony, 

211 his breast. A, this night. 

212 carelessly. A, willingly. 
214 /. Italicized in A. 

220 a Fury leading thus. A, a Fury — free to lead. 



66 llBlot in t\)t '^tntt\)ton [act m. 

Demanding and responding in God's praise ! 
Hers ye are now, nbt mine ! Farewell — fare- 
well ! 225 

Scene IL — Mildred's chamber. 
Mildred alone. 

He comes not ! I have heard of those who 

seemed 
Resourceless in prosperity, — you thought 
Sorrow might slay them when she listed ; yet 
Did they so gather up their diffused strength 
At her first menace, that they bade her strike, 5 
And stood and laughed her subtlest skill to scorn. 
Oh, 't is not so with me ! The first woe fell. 
And the rest fall upon it, not on me : 
Else should I bear that Henry comes not ? — 

fails 10 

Just this first night out of so many nights ? 
Loving is done with. Were he sitting now. 
As so few hours since, on that seat, we M love 
No more — contrive no thousand happy ways 
To hide love from the loveless, any more. 15 

I think I might have urged some little point 
In my defence, to Thorold ; he was breathless 
For the least hint of a defence : but no. 
The first shame over, all that would might fall. 
No Henry ! Yet I merely sit and think 



Scene II] ^ ^Blot tU tl^t '^CUCCljeOn 67 

The morn's deed o'er and o'er. I must have 

crept 20 

Out of myself. A Mildred that has lost 
Her lover — oh, I dare not look upon 
Such woe ! I crouch away from it ! 'T is she, 
Mildred, will break her heart, not I ! The world 
Forsakes me : only Henry 's left me — left ? 25 
When I have lost him, for he does not come. 
And I sit stupidly . . . Oh Heaven, break up 
This worse than anguish, this mad apathy. 
By any means or any messenger ! 

Tres. (without). Mildred ! 

AfiL Come in ! Heaven hears me ! 

(^Enter Tresham.) You ? alone ? 30 
Oh, no more cursing ! 

Tres. Mildred, I must sit. 

There — you sit ! 

Mil. Say it, Thorold — do not look 

The curse ! deliver all you come to say ! 
What must become of me ? Oh, speak that 

thought 
Which makes your brow and cheeks so pale ! 

Tres. My thought ? 35 

Mil. All of it ! 

Tres. How we waded — years ago — 

After those water-lilies, till the plash, 
I know not how, surprised us ; and you dared 

37 those water-lilies. A, the water-lilies. 



68 ^ )15lot in t\)t '^tntt^ton [act m. 

Neither advance nor turn back : so, we stood 
Laughing and crying until Gerard came — 
Once safe upon the turf, the loudest too, 
For once more reaching the relinquished prize ! 
How idle thoughts are, some men's, dying men's ! 
Mildred,— 

AliL You call me kindlier by my name 

Than eve;i yesterday : what is in that ? 

Tres. It weighs so much upon my mind that I 
This morning took an office not my own ! 
I might ... of course, I must be glad or 

grieved. 
Content or not, at every little thing 
That touches you. I may with a wrung heart 
Even reprove you, Mildred ; I did more : 
Will you forgive me ? 

Mil. Thorold ? do you mock ? 

Or no . . . and yet you bid me . . . say that 
word ! 
Tres. Forgive me, Mildred ! — are you silent, 

Sweet ? 
Mil. (^starting up). Why does not Henry Mer- 
toun come to-night ? 
Are you, too, silent ? 

Dashing his mantle aside ^ and pointing to 
his scabbard^ which is empty. 

Ah, this speaks for you ! 

41 Query : comma after loudest f 56 Are you. A itdWcized you. 



Scene II] ^ HBlOt Itt t^t '^CUtClieOn 69 

You 've murdered Henry Mertoun ! Now pro- 
ceed ! 
What is it I must pardon ? This and all ? 
Well, I do pardon you — I think I do. 
Thorold, how very wretched you must be ! 60 

Tres. He bade me tell you . . . 
Mil. What I do forbid 

Your utterance of ! So much that you may tell 
And* will not — how you murdered him . . . 

but, no ! 
You '11 tell me that he loved me, never more 
Than bleeding out his life there : must I say 65 
'' Indeed," to that ? Enough ! I pardon you. 
Tres. You cannot, Mildred ! for the harsh 
words, yes : 
Of this last deed Another 's judge ; whose doom 
I wait in doubt, despondency and fear. 

Mil. Oh, true ! There 's nought for me to 
pardon ! True ! 70 

You loose my soul of all its cares at once. 
Death makes me sure of him forever ! You 
Tell me his last words ? He shall tell me them, 
And take my answer — not in words, but read- 
ing 
Himself the heart I had to read him late, 75 

Which death ... 

62 that you. A italicized ^o«. 71 Tou loose. A, You loosed 
72 Tou. Italicized in A. 73 He. Italicized in A. 



70 ^ 315lot in t})t '^tnttl^ton [act hi. 

Tres. Death ? You are dying too ? Well 

said 
Of Guendolen ! I dared not hope you 'd die : 
But she was sure of it. 

Mil. Tell Guendolen 

I loved her, and tell Austin . . . 

Tres. Him you loved : 

And me ? 

Mil. Ah, Thorold ! Was 't not rashly done 80 
To quench that blood, on fire with youth and 

hope 
And love of me — whom you loved too, and yet 
Suffered to sit here waiting his approach 
While you were slaying him ? Oh, doubtlessly 
You let him speak his poor confused boy's-speech 85 
— Do his poor utmost to disarm your wrath 
And respite me ! — you let him try to give 
The story of our love and ignorance, 
And the brief madness and the long despair — 
You let him plead all this, because your code 90 
Of honour bids you hear before you strike : 
But at the end, as he looked up for life 
Into your eyes — you struck him down ! 

Tres. No! No! 

Had I but heard him — had I let him speak 
Half the truth — less — had I looked long on him 95 
I had desisted ! Why, as he lay there, 

82 ivhomyou loved too. Ay you loved I think. 88 lo've. A, loves. 



Scene II.] ^ MOt iXt tl^t '^Uttl^tOtt 7 1 

The moon on his flushed cheek, I gathered all 
The story ere he told it : I saw through 
The troubled surface of his crime and yours 
A depth of purity immovable. loo 

Had I but glanced, where all seemed turbidest 
Had gleamed some inlet to the calm beneath ; 
I would not glance : my punishment 's at hand. 
There, Mildred, is the truth ! and you — say on — 
You curse me ? 

Mil. As I dare approach that Heaven 105 

Which has not bade a living thing despair, 
Which needs no code to keep its grace from stain, 
But bids the vilest worm that turns on it 
Desist and be forgiven, — I — forgive not. 
But bless you, Thorold, from my soul of souls ! no 

Falls on his neck. 
There ! Do not think too much upon the past ! 
The cloud that 's broke was all the same a cloud 
While it stood up between my friend and you ; 
You hurt him 'neath its shadow : but is that 
So past retrieve ? I have his heart, you know; 115 
I may dispose of it : I give it you ! 
It loves you as mine loves ! Confirm me, Henry ! 

Dies. 

Tres. I wish thee joy. Beloved ! I am glad 
In thy full gladness ! 

Guen. {without). Mildred ! Tresham ! 

{Entering with Austin^ Thorold, 



72 at 515lot in t\)t '^cttttljeon [act m. 

I could desist no longer. Ah, she swoons ! 120 

That's well. 

Tres. Oh, better far than that ! 

Guen. She 's dead ! 

Let me unlock her arms ! 

Tres. She threw them thus 

About my neck, and blessed me, and then died : 
You '11 let them stay now, Guendolen ! 

j^ust. Leave her 

And look to him ! What ails you, Thorold ? 

Guen, White 125 

As she, and whiter ! Austin ! quick — this side ! 

Just. A froth is oozing through his clenched 
teeth ; 
Both lips, where they 're not bitten through, are 

black : 
Speak, dearest Thorold ! 

Tres, Something does weigh down 

My neck beside her weight : thanks : I should 

fall 1 30 

But for you, Austin, I believe! — there, there, 
'T will pass away soon ! — ah, — I had forgotten : 
I am dying. 

Guen, Thorold — Thorold — why was 

this ? 

Tres, I said, just as I drank the poison off. 
The earth would be no longer earth to me, 135 
The life out of all life was gone from me. 



Scene II.] ^ ilBlot tu tl)e '^cutcl^eon 73 

There are blind ways provided, the foredone 
Heart-weary player in this pageant-world 
Drops out by, letting the main masque defile 
By the conspicuous portal : I am through — 140 
Just through ! 

Guen. Don't leave him, Austin ! Death is 

close. 
Tres. Already Mildred's face is peacefuller. 
I see you, Austin — feel you : here 's my hand, 
Put yours in it — you, Guendolen, yours too ! 
You 're lord and lady now — you 're Treshams ; 

name 145 

And fame are yours : you hold our 'scutcheon up. 
Austin, no blot on it ! You see how blood 
Must wash one blot away : the first blot came 
And the first blood came. To the vain world's 

eye 
All 's gules again : no care to the vain world, 150 
From whence the red was drawn ! 

Just. No blot shall come ! 

Tres. I said that : yet it did come. Should it 
come. 
Vengeance is God's, not man's. Remember me ! 

Dies. 

Guen. {letting fall the pulseless arm). Ah, 

Thorold, we can but — remember you ! 



I^ote^ to ^ 25lot in tlje ^^tntt^tm 

For the meaning of single words see the Glossary. 

A Blot In the ^Scutcheon was written in 1843 ^^ ^^^ ^^X^j ^^ 
response to an invitation from Macready that Browning should pre- 
pare a play for him. The tragedian received and read it with warm 
expressions of approval, but he soon found himself, in consequence 
of the failure of other plays, so embarrassed financially that he did 
not wish to produce it. He had not the manliness to confess the 
truth, and seems to have gone to work in a manner not too honor- 
able to provoke Browning to refuse to have it played. It was read 
to the players by the head prompter, one Wilmot, *' a broadly comic 
personage with a wooden leg and a very red face, whose vulgar sallies 
were the delight of all the idle jesters that hung about the theatre. " * 
The result, according to Lady Martin, who as Helen Faucit played 
Mildred, was that ** the delicate, subtle lines were twisted, per- 
verted, and even sometimes made ridiculous." Macready told 
Browning that it was received with shouts of laughter, and although 
he afterwards reread it to the company, he turned his part in it 
over to Mr. Phelps. It was Macready's hope that the poet would 
withdraw the play, but as this was not done, the tragedian took 
advantage of the temporary illness of Phelps to resume at rehearsals 
the part of Tresham himself. He changed the title to The Sisters, 
and proposed to cut out the first act and the tragic conclusion, end- 
ing it with lines of his own. Browning at once took the poem to 
his publishers, had it hastily printed as number five of Bells and 
Pomegranates^ and put a copy into the hands of each of the actors. 
He then had Phelps restored to the caste as Tresham ; and on 
Feb. 1 1 the play was given with marked success — at least of 
esteem. It was announced to be played three times a week until 
fiirther notice, but the financial breaking down of Macready closed 
the theatre almost immediately. 

^ Edmund Gosse: Personalia (1890), pp. 59-60. 



^otte 75 

Mr. Phelps revived the play at Sadler's Wells Theatre Nov. 
27, 1848, and it had a run of two weeks. 

It was brought out in America in 1885 by Mr. Lawrence Bar- 
rett. He omitted the first scene and the last third of the second act. 

The London Browning Society gave the play May 2, 1885, at 
St. George's Hall, and March 15, 1888, at the Olympic Theatre. 

The London Examiner of Feb. 1 8, 1 844, commented : " In 
performance it was successful : a result which it had been hardly 
safe to predict of a work of so much rare beauty and of such decisive 
originality.'* The Athenaum^ Dec. 2, 1848, on the occasion of 
the revival, said : ** The play as now acted commanded well- 
deserved applause : giving satisfaction to a numerous though not 
overflowing audience." 

When the play was given in 1888, Frederick Wedmore wrote 
the notice in the Academy^ and in the course of it remarked : ^^ A 
Blot in the ''Scutcheon is a great example of true dramatic literature, 
as distinguished from theatrical writing." The Athemeum^ on the 
same occasion, in the review quoted below (67, 30> p- 80), said : 
** Though far from being dramatic, A Blot in the ^Scutcheon is 
profoundly human and sympathetic.** 

Act I, Scene i. Mr. Barrett omitted this scene. 

3, 4. poursuivant. A herald or advance messenger. 
Browning probably used this and kindred Elizabethan words to give 
the flavor of a previous century. * Bravery * in the sense of finery 
below, and the allusions to hawking are examples of the same 
thing. Commentators have noted that the poet is not always care- 
ful in holding strictly to seventeenth-century terms, but this seems 
of no possible importance. 

5, 41. Their perfumed selves so indispensable. 
After praising the naturalness and appropriateness of lines 68—75, 
W. L. Courtney comments on 40-41 : "It reminds one of Ham- 
let's waterfly, Osric, rather than of Tresham's retainers." — 
Studies Neiv and Old. 

6, 44. cast of Swedish hawks. Cast is technically a 
pair 5 a leash of greyhounds — from the leash or thong that 
holds them — is three hounds. 

8, 93. no herald more. It was the business of a herald to 
regulate all the details of court ceremonial and etiquette. 



7^ iptotesi 

Act II, Scene ii. Mr. Barrett played scenes 2 and 3 with the 
same set, the ** chamber ** being represented as adjoining the ** sa- 
loon,*' and looking out upon the park. 

10, 16. he *S the king's. He is in the army. 

12-13, 74-80. Her beauty . . . yet. This portrait of a ^ 
sister is one of the most beautiful passages in the play. 

14, 109. Here . . . Earl. The exposition, as it is tech- 
nically called, the explanation to the audience of the situation, is 
begun in sc. I by calling attention to the fact that Gerard is myste- 
riously ill at ease. Here it is continued by the comment of Austin, 
who, while attaching to it no sinister meaning, notices the unusual 
manner of Mertoun. The strokes are perhaps less broad than those 
which playwrights generally employ for such a purpose as that of 
preparing the audience for the terrible disclosure which comes in 
sc. 3. 

16,133. Mildred is fourteen. The propriety of making 
Mildred so young has been questioned and defended. Dr. Rolfe 
and Miss Hersey say : ** This extraordinary statement seems to be 
the chief dramatic blemish of the play. " It is evidently a device 
on the part of the poet to make the youth of Mildred an excuse 
for her sin, and seems as unsuccessful as it is improbable (but see 
note on sc. 3, 1. 237). The only thing to do in this case is to 
receive the fact as an arbitrary sign that Mildred was so far from a 
realization of the nature of what she was doing that she fell without 
that moral degradation which would be an essential condition of 
deliberate transgression. Certainly this supposition must be accepted 
or the whole scheme of the tragedy as Browning conceived it goes 
to pieces. This method of impressing the fact upon the audience 
may not be regarded as wisely chosen, but of its intention there can 
be no doubt. 

16, 138-148. In . . . vouchsafes. Guendolen is de- 
lightful in every word throughout the scene. This speech in which, 
influenced by the remark of Austin (11. 109-120), she changes 
from her position of 1. 43, yet without openly declaring that she 
has any fault to find beyond a whimsical charge, is deliciously femi- 
nine. 

17-18, 162-169. Come, . . . Come. The impetuosity of 
Tresham, which has been insisted upon throughout the scene as a 
preparation for the climax of act iii, is here made the final note. 



0Ott6 77 

1 8, 6. Lord Mertoun*s pedigree. The important idea 

of the honor of the house of Tresham is first touched upon by the 
retainer, sc. i, 1. 87; in sc. 2 the opening words of Tresham show 
the importance he attaches to a name 5 at 1. 130 he returns to 
the fact that Mertoun is of lineage satisfactory to a degree that the 
others do not appreciate^ and here Guendolen again brings for- 
ward the idea of Tresham' s pride of race. Her jesting farewell, 
11. 65—68, emphasizes the idea again. This is of course all part of 
the carrying out of the spirit of the title. How effective it is upon the 
audience might possibly be questioned, since on the stage those things 
most move the audience which are shown by action. In the 
present case, however, it is no matter. The normal human feelings 
of a brother who discovers that a dearly loved sister has been be- 
trayed are sufficient to account for the emotion of Tresham in the 
succeeding acts, and it is to these feelings that any spectator would 
be likely to attribute his action. 

19, 24. Am I perplexed. Here again in playfulness 
Guendolen touches upon the matter of ancestry, and claims to have 
understood and remembered some minute account of the pedigree 
which Tresham has given them, so that she knows whether Wil- 
liam the Conqueror, eating from the rocks of the kingdom he has 
invaded but not yet conquered, bade Mertoun' s ancestor sit on his 
left (the bow-hand) or granted him the ** great meed " of the place 
of honor on his right (the arrow-hand). 

21, 67-68. that fair dame . . . dance. Legend thus 

accounts for the founding of the Order of the Garter, 1340-13 50. 
King Edward HI picked up a garter dropped at a ball by the 
Countess of Salisbury, placing it on his knee with the words to his 
courtiers, Honi soit qui mal y pense (shamed be he who thinks evil 
of it). His words became the motto of the order. 

22, 75. soothes up. This is the most Elizabethan touch 
in the play. 

22, 8i. There's a woman like a dew-drop. This 

song is one of the most beautiful of Browning's love lyrics, but it 
is here inappropriate to a degree almost shocking. Lawrence Bar- 
rett omitted it on the ground that it too much delayed the action, 
as it no doubt does. Exquisite as the song is, one who realizes the 
situation in which it is sung cannot wonder that on the first per- 



78 il^OttSf 

formance of the play " the audience was not quite sure whether to 
laugh or no.'* 

26, 1 50-1 5 1, cursed fount . . . spouts blood. Cf. 

yulius Ci£sar, ii. 2, 76-78. In this speech, 11. 132-154, Brown- 
ing proves his power of writing great dramatic poetry. This is 
direct, simple enough to be easily followed, yet it is full of variety 
and charged throughout with intense emotion. 

27, 167-168. pace the chamber. Here, in striking con- 
trast to the lines just noted, is a passage which rings false in every 
word. Mertoun throughout the scene lacks verisimilitude, and the 
next long speech — 11. 1 74-209 — is both artificial and pretty 
nearly impossible, one would think, on the stage. 

30, 230-231. Then . . . To-morrow night. The insist- 
ence upon the delay which gives another night for the completion of 
the plot, the rather inadequate reason and the doubtful probability 
of the lovers taking the risk of another clandestine meeting, add 
greatly to the artificiality of the story. It is possible, however, to 
see in Mildred's shrinking, 11. 1 61-164, ^ natural and feminine 
weakness. 

30, 237-238. I . . . mother. Charles Dickens, who read 
the play in manuscript, declared: " I know nothing that is so affect- 
ing, nothing in any book I have ever read, as Mildred's recurrence 
to that, ' I was so young — I had no mother. ' ' ' 

30, 239-240. There . . . past. In Mr. Barrett's pro- 
duction these two lines were omitted, with a great gain, it is said, 
in theatrical effect. 

39, 150-15 1, here *s a line . . . me. The stage business 
obviously is that Mildred looks over his shoulder at the copy of 
Ovid's Metamorphoses where he points out the line. He shrinks 
from her touch. 

39-42, 157-232. Mildred . . . bliss. Here the speeches, 
although of some length, are admirably appropriate. Tresham's 
indirect approach to his question and the fluctuations of his over- 
wrought feeling are masterly. 

43j ^35- Become . . . me. The acting version of Mr. 
Barrett omitted the rest of the act except 11. 241, 284-287. 
Guendolen, Austin, and Mildred pass across the scene with these 
few words, and disappear into the house. Tresham enters, solilo- 



^tt& 79 

quizes, and hides among the trees. Mildred's chamber opens by a 
bow- window and small balcony on the park. LI. 424—443 are 
made the beginning of the third act. It thus escapes the hope- 
lessly long speech of Guendolen, 11. 353-369, which hinders the 
action with no dramatic gain, and leaves out the discovery on her 
part of the identity of the lover, a detail which is of much interest 
in building up Guendolen' s character, but which is of no essential 
importance to the play since nothing comes of it. On the other 
hand it lessens the effect of what is the supreme dramatic situation 
of the tragedy, Tresham's belief that Mildred will marry Mertoun 
while she has another lover. Painful as this is, it is tremendously 
effective, and both Tresham and Mildred have in it ample oppor- 
tunity for their best art. Helen Faucit was especially effective in 
this scene, and it is manifestly for the stage the best in the whole 
part. As an example of the sort of adverse criticism which has so 
often assailed Browning, may be quoted a part of the article in 
which the London Era commented on the revival of the play 
in 1888. Of the speech of Guendolen alluded to above it said: 
** Any ordinary good-hearted young woman in any ordinary piece 
would have expressed her feelings in half-a-dozen straightforward 
lines, at least. Not so Mr. Browning's Guendolen. She begins to 
reason like a lawyer, and for several mortal minutes poor Mildred 
has to lie on the floor to recover herself at leisure. Were these long 
passages poetry, they might be endured for the sake of the word- 
music ; but they are of the strange uncouth language Mr. Brown- 
ing has invented." Flippant as this is, it has a sufficient basis in 
truth to make it tell. 

43, 243-244. face can . . . hearts. Tresham looks in 
her face, and seeing its beauty and purity, exclaims that a face may 
come from heaven while the heart behind it may be vile enough to 
come from hell. 

55, 20. Confederates against the sovereign day. 
The trees are this in that they keep perpetual shadow under them. 
The line has an Elizabethan flavor. 

55) 31- voluptuous. The word in the mouth of Mertoun 
here has an unpleasant flavor. 

Act III, Scene ii. Mr. Barrett had Tresham disappear among 
the trees. Mildred delivered her soliloquy from a balcony, and then 



8o ^tte 

descended into the park* This disregarded all previous statements 
about Mildred's chamber, which could be reached only by climbing, 
but gave opportunity for the stage business noted below (1. 56). 

66, 4. diffused. Browning takes the Elizabethan license of 
accenting the word on the first syllable. 

67? 30- Come in ! The London Athenaum^ commenting 
on the performance of the play in 1888, remarks: **What 
lover dreading a surprise, will sing a love song while clambering at 
midnight to his mistress's casement [i, 2.] ? What Hero, again, 
with the signal lamp burning that bids Leander speed to her cham- 
ber, will, when she hears a knock at her door, say calmly, * Come 
in ! * and welcome composedly the brother whose meeting with 
the anticipated visitor is the thing of all others the one she most 
dreads ? These, and other details, though comparatively unimpor- 
tant, prove how little the author has the theatrical insight.'* 

68, 56. Ah, this speaks for you I In Barrett's version 
Mildred, walking among the trees, comes upon the hat and cloak 
of Mertoun where he flung them down before the duel. As a stage 
device this is far more effective than the empty scabbard. 

73> 137-140- There are . . . portal. "These lines 
are like those of Middleton." Athenaum notice quoted at 1. 30. 



Coloml)e'0 isitt^tiav 



2r>eDtcatton« 

No One Loves And Honours Barry Cornwall More Than Robert Browning : 

Who Having Nothing Better Than This Play To Give Him In Proof Of It j 

Must Say So. 

March^ 1844. 



PERSONS. 



CoLOMBE OF Ravestein, Duchcss of Juliers and Cleves. 

Sabyne ) 

- V Her Attendants- 

Adolf J 

Guibert 

Gaucelme 

Maufroy 

Clugnet 

Valence, Advocate of Cleves. 

Prince Berthold, Claimant of the Duchy 

Melchior, his Confidant. 



Courtiers. 



Place, The Palace of yuliers. 
Time, 16 — . 

Dedication. In the 1849 ed., and thereafter, these lines of verse on the 
1844 title-page follow a half-title : — 

" Ivy and violet, what do ye here, 

'* With blossom and shoot in the warm spring-weather, 

" Hiding the arms of Monchenci and Vere f ** Hanmbr. 

After A, the Dedication and the Persons are on successive pages. 
March. London, 1888-94 ed. 



1844 



ACT I. 

MORNING. 



Scene. — A corridor leading to the Audience- 
chamber, 

Gaucelme^ Clugnet^ Maufroy and other Courtiers^ 
round Guibert^ who is silently reading a paper : 
as he drops it at the end — 

Guibert, That this should be her birthday; 
and the day 
We all invested her, twelve months ago, 
As the late Duke's true heiress and our liege ; 
And that this also must become the day . . . 
Oh, miserable lady ! 

1st Courtier. Ay, indeed ? 

2nd Court. Well, Guibert ? 
jrd Court. But your nevv^s, my friend, 

your news ! 
The sooner, friend, one learns Prince Berthold's 
pleasure. 



84 Colombe'0 31Birt|)6ap [act i. 

The better for us all : how writes the Prince ? 
Give me ! I '11 read it for the common good. 

Guih. In time, sir, — but till time comes, 
pardon me ! lo 

Our old Duke just disclosed his child's retreat, 
Declared her true succession to his rule. 
And died : this birthday was the day, last year. 
We convoyed her from Castle Ravestein — 
That sleeps out trustfully its extreme age 15 

On the Meuse' quiet bank, where she lived queen 
Over the water-buds, — to Juliers' court 
With joy and bustle. Here again we stand ; 
Sir Gaucelme's buckle 's constant to his cap 5 
To-day 's much such another sunny day ! 20 

Gaucelme, Come, Guibert, this outgrows a 
jest, I think ! 
You 're hardly such a novice as to need 
The lesson, you pretend. 

Guih. What lesson, sir ? 

That everybody, if he 'd thrive at court. 
Should, first and last of all, look to himself ? 25 
Why, no : and therefore with your good ex- 
ample, 
(—Ho, Master Adolf!) — to myself I'll look. 
Enter Adolf. 

Guih. The Prince's letter; why, of all men else. 
Comes it to me ? 

16 nvhere she H'ved queen. A, where queen she lived. 
21 outgroivs. A, outgoes. 



Scene I] Colottifae's llBtrtl^lia^ 85 

Adolf, By virtue of your place, 

Sir Guibert ! 'T was the Prince's express charge, 3<^ 
His envoy told us, that the missive there 
Should only reach our lady by the hand 
Of whosoever held your place. 

Guih. Enough ! 

Adolf retires. 
Then, gentles, who Ml accept a certain poor 
IndiiFerently honourable place, 35 

My friends, I make no doubt, have gnashed their 

teeth 
At leisure minutes these half-dozen years. 
To find me never in the mood to quit ? 
Who asks may have it, with my blessing, and — 
This to present our lady. Who '11 accept ? 40 

You, — you, — you ? There it lies, and may, 

for me ! 
Maufroy (a youth ^ picking up the paper^ reads 

aloudy " Prince Berthold, proved by 

titles following 
" Undoubted Lord of Juliers, comes this day 
'^ To claim his own, with license from the Pope, 
"The Emperor, the Kings of Spain and 

France "... 45 

Gauc, Sufficient " titles following," I judge ! 
Don't read another! Well, — -"to claim his 

own " ? 

40 This. Italicized in A. 



86 Colombrs llBirttitiap [act i. 

Mauf. " — And take possession of the Duchy 
held 
" Since twelve months, to the true heir's preju- 
dice, 
" By " . . . Colombe, Juliers' mistress, so she 

thinks, 50 

And Ravestein's mere lady, as we find. 
Who wants the place and paper ? Guibert 's 

right. 
I hope to climb a little in the world, — 
I 'd push my fortunes, — but, no more than he, 
Could tell her on this happy day of days, 55 

That, save the nosegay in her hand perhaps. 
There 's nothing left to call her own. Sir Clug- 

net. 
You famish for promotion ; what say you ? 
Clugnet (an old man). To give this letter were 
a sort, I take it. 
Of service : services ask recompense : 60 

What kind of corner may be Ravestein ? 

Guib. The castle ? Oh, you 'd share her for- 
tunes ? Good ! 
Three walls stand upright, full as good as four, 
With no such bad remainder of a roof. 
Clugn, Oh, — but the town ? 
Guib. Five houses, fifteen huts ; 65 

A church whereto was once a spire, 't is judged ; 
And half a dyke, except in time of thaw. 



Scene I] Colombe'0 215irtl)Dap 87 

Clugn. Still, there 's some revenue ? 

Guih, Else Heaven forfend ! 

You hang a beacon out, should fogs increase ; 
So, when the Autumn floats of pine-wood steer 70 
Safe 'mid the white confusion, thanks to you, 
Their grateful raftsman flings a guilder in ; — 
That 's if he mean to pass your way next time. 

Clugn. If not ? 

Guib. Hang guilders, then ! He blesses 
you. 

Clugn, What man do you suppose me ? Keep 
your paper ! 75 

And, let me say, it shows no handsome spirit 
To dally with misfortune : keep your place ! 

Gauc, Some one must tell her. 

Guib, Some one may : you may ! 

Gauc. Sir Guibert, 't is no trifle turns me 
sick 
Of court-hypocrisy at years like mine, 80 

But this goes near it. Where 's there news at 

all? 
Who '11 have the face, for instance, to affirm 
He never heard, e'en while we crowned the girl. 
That Juliers' tenure was by Salic law ; 
That one, confessed her father's cousin's child, 85 
And, she away, indisputable heir. 
Against our choice protesting and the Duke's, 

73 mean. A, means. 85 That one. A, And one. 



88 Colombrs llBirtl^Uap [act i. 

Claimed Juliers ? — nor, as he preferred his 

claim, 
That first this, then another potentate, 
Inclined to its allowance ? — I or you, 90 

Or any one except the lady's self? 
Oh, it had been the direst cruelty 
To break the business to her ! Things might 

change : 
At all events, we 'd see next masque at end. 
Next mummery over first : and so the edge 95 

Was taken off sharp tidings as they came. 
Till here 's the Prince upon us, and there 's she 
— Wreathing her hair, a song between her lips. 
With just the faintest notion possible 
That some such claimant earns a livelihood 100 
About the world, by feigning grievances — 
Few pay the story of, but grudge its price, 
And fewer listen to, a second time. 
Your method proves a failure ; now try mine ! 
And, since this must be carried . . . 

Guih. {snatching the paper from him). By your 

leave ! 105 

Your zeal transports you ! 'T will not serve the 

Prince 
So much as you expect, this course you 'd take. 
If she leaves quietly her palace, — well; 
But if she died upon its threshold, — no : 
He 'd have the trouble of removing her. no 



Scene I] Colouibe'^ Btrtl^Da^ 89 

Come, gentles, we 're all — what the devil 

knows ! 
You, Gaucelme, won't lose character, beside : 
You broke your father's heart superiorly 
To gather his succession — never blush ! 
You 're from my province, and, be comforted, I'S 
They tell of it with wonder to this day. 
You can afford to let your talent sleep. 
We '11 take the very worst supposed, as true : 
There, the old Duke knew, when he hid his 

child 
Among the river-flowers at Ravestein, 120 

With whom the right lay ! Call the Prince our 

Duke ! 
There, she 's no Duchess, she 's no anything 
More than a young maid with the bluest eyes : 
And now, sirs, we '11 not break this young maid's 

heart 
Coolly as Gaucelme could and would ! No 

haste ! 125 

His talent 's full-blown, ours but in the bud : 
We'll not advance to his perfection yet — 
Will we. Sir Maufroy ? See, I 've ruined Mau- 

froy 
Forever as a courtier ! 

1 1 8-1 20 Not in first edition. 

121 Call the Prince our Duke. A, Let the Prince be Duke. 

125 Coolly as Gaucelme, A, So coolly as he. 



90 €olomht'6 Witt^U^ [act i. 

Gauc. Here 's a coil ! 

And, count us, will you ? Count its residue, 130 
This boasted convoy, this day last year's crowd ! 
A birthday, too, a gratulation day ! 
I 'm dumb : bid that keep silence ! 

Maufroy and others. Eh, Sir Guibert ? 

He 's right : that does say something : that's 

bare truth. 
Ten — twelve, I make : a perilous dropping off! 135 

Guih. Pooh — is it audience hour ? The ves- 
tibule 
Swarms too, I wager, with the common sort 
That want our privilege of entry here. 

Gauc. Adolf! {Re-enter Adolf >j Who 's out- 
side ? 

Guih. Oh, your looks suffice ! 

Nobody waiting ? 

Mauf. {looking through the door-folds). Scarce 
our number ! 

Guih. 'Sdeath ! 140 

Nothing to beg for, to complain about ? 
It can't be ! Ill news spreads, but not so fast 
As thus to frighten all the world ! 

Gauc. The world 

Lives out of doors, sir — not with you and me 
By presence-chamber porches, state-room stairs, 145 
Wherever warmth 's perpetual : outside 's free 

133 that. Italicized in A. 



Scene I.] €(Aom\)f6 UBittl^Oa^ 9 1 

To every wind from every compass-point, 
And who may get nipped needs be weather-wise. 
The Prince comes and the lady's People go ; 
The snow-goose settles down, the swallows 

flee — 150 

Why should they wait for winter-time ? 'T is 

instinct. 
Don't you feel somewhat chilly ? 

Guib. That 's their craft ? 

And last year's crowders-round and criers-forth 
That strewed the garlands, overarched the roads. 
Lighted the bonfires, sang the loyal songs ! 155 

Well 't is my comfort, you could never call me 
The People's Friend ! The People keep their 

word — 
I keep my place : don't doubt I '11 entertain 
The People when the Prince comes, and the 

People 
Are talked of ! Then, their speeches — no one 

tongue 160 

Found respite, not a pen had holiday 

— For they wrote, too, as well as spoke, these 

knaves ! 
Now see : we tax and tithe them, pill and poll. 
They wince and fret enough, but pay they must 

— We manage that, — so, pay with a good grace 165 
They might as well, it costs so little more. 

149 and the lady'' s People go. A, And the people go 5 *tis in- 
stinct. 151 Not in first edition. 155 Lighted. A, Lit up. 



92 Colombo's? llBirtl^tiap [act i. 

But when we 've done with taxes, meet folk next 

Outside the toll-booth and the rating-place, 

In public — there they have us if they will, 

We 're at their mercy after that, you see ! 170 

For one tax not ten devils could extort — 

Over and above necessity, a grace ; 

This prompt disbosoming of love, to wit — 

Their vine-leaf wrappage of our tribute penny, 

And crowning attestation, all works well. 175 

Yet this precisely do they thrust on us ! 

These cappings quick, these crook-and-cringings 

low. 
Hand to the heart, and forehead to the knee, 
With grin that shuts the eyes and opes the 

mouth — 
So tender they their love; and, tender made, 180 
Go home to curse us, the first doit we ask. 
As if their souls were any longer theirs ! 
As if they had not given ample warrant 
To who should clap a collar on their neck. 
Rings in their nose, a goad to either flank, 185 

And take them for the brute they boast them- 
selves ! 
Stay — there 's a bustle at the outer door — 
And somebody entreating . . . that 's my name ! 
Adolf, — I heard my name ! 

175 crowning. Even the edition of 1888 has crowding, but as 
Browning wrote to Prof. Rolfe that this was a " vile misprint,*' the 
proper reading is restored in the text. i%i us, we. A, you, you. 



Scene I] ColOtttbe'fi Mttffi^UlS 93 

Jdolf. 'T was probably 

The suitor. 

Guib. Oh, there is one ? 

Jdolf. With a suit 190 

He M fain enforce in person. 

Guib. The good heart 

— And the great fool ! Just ope the mid-door's 

fold ! 
Is that a lappet of his cloak, I see ? 

Jdolf. If it bear plenteous sign of travel . . . ay. 
The very cloak my comrades tore ! 

Guib. Why tore ? 195 

j^dolf. He seeks the Duchess' presence in that 
trim : 
Since daybreak, was he posted hereabouts 
Lest he should miss the moment. 

Guib. Where 's he now? 

Adolf. Gone for a minute possibly, not more : 
They have ado enough to thrust him back. 200 

Guib. Ay — but my name, I caught ? 

Adolf. Oh, sir — he said 

— What was it ? — You had known him for- 

merly. 
And, he believed, would help him did you guess 
He waited now ; you promised him as much : 
The old plea ! 'Faith, he 's back, — renews the 

charge ! 205 

194 sign. A, signs. 195 comrades. A, comrade. 

202 What ivas it f A, What said he ? 



94 Colombo's llBirtl^lia^ [act i. 

{^speaking at the door^ So long as the man par- 
leys, peace outside — 
Nor be too ready with your halberts, there ! 
Gauc. My horse bespattered, as he blocked 
the path 
A thin sour man, not unlike somebody. 

Adolf. He holds a paper in his breast, whereon 210 
He glances when his cheeks flush and his brow 
At each repulse — 

Gauc, I noticed he 'd a brow. 

Adolf, So glancing, he grows calmer, leans 
awhile 
Over the balustrade, adjusts his dress. 
And presently turns round, quiet again, 215 

With some new pretext for admittance. — 

Back! 
{To Guibert,) — Sir, he has seen you ! Now cross 

halberts ! Ha — 
Pascal is prostrate — there lies Fabian too ! 
No passage ! Whither would the madman press ? 
Close the doors quick on me ! 

Guib. Too late ! He 's here. 220 

Enter ^ hastily and with discomposed dress ^ Valence, 

Valence, Sir Guibert, will you help me ? — me, 
that come 
Charged by your townsmen, all who starve at 
Cleves, 



Scene I.] Colottibe'g UBirtl^Das 95 

To represent their heights and depths of woe 

Before our Duchess and obtain relief? 

Such errands barricade such doors, it seems : 225 

But not a common hindrance drives me back 

On all the sad yet hopeful faces, lit 

With hope for the first time, which sent me 

forth. 
Cleves, speak for me ! Cleves' men and women, 

speak ! 
Who followed me — your strongest — many a 

mile 230 

That I might go the fresher from their ranks, 

— Who sit — your weakest — by the city gates, 
To take me fuller of what news I bring 

As I return — for I must needs return ! 

— Can I ? 'T were hard, no listener for their 

wrongs, 235 

To turn them back upon the old despair — 
Harder, Sir Guibert, than imploring thus — 
So, I do — any way you please — implore ! 
If you . . . but how should you remember 

Cleves ? 
Yet they of Cleves remember you so well ! 240 
Ay, comment on each trait of you they keep. 
Your words and deeds caught up at second 

hand, — 
Proud, I believe, at bottom of their hearts, 
O' the very levity and recklessness 

244 0' the. A, Of the. 



96 Colombe's llBirtl^a^ [act i. 

Which only prove that you forget their wrongs. ^45 
Cleves, the grand town, whose men and women 

starve, 
Is Cleves forgotten ? Then, remember me ! 
You promised me that you would help rrie once. 
For other purpose : will you keep your word ? 
Guih, And who may you be, friend ? 
VaL Valence of Cleves. ^5° 

Guih. Valence of . . . not the advocate of 
Cleves, 
I owed my whole estate to, three years back ? 
Ay, well may you keep silence ! Why, my lords, 
You 've heard, I 'm sure, how, Pentecost three 

years, 
I was so nearly ousted of my land ^55 

By some knave' s-pretext — (eh ? when you re- 
fused me 
Your ugly daughter, Clugnet !) — and you Ve 

heard 
How I recovered it by miracle 

— (When I refused her !) Here 's the very 

friend, 

— Valence of Cleves, all parties have to thank ! 260 
Nay, Valence, this procedure 's vile in you ! 

I 'm no more grateful than a courtier should, 
But politic am I — I bear a brain. 
Can cast about a little, might require 

245 that you. A, yourself. 



Scene I.] €olOmht'S Mttf^t^U^ 97 

Your services a second time. I tried 265 

To tempt you with advancement here to court 
— " No ! " — well, for curiosity at least 
To view our life here — " No ! " — our Duch- 
ess, then, — 
A pretty woman 's worth some pains to see, 
Nor is she spoiled, I take it, if a crown 270 

Complete the forehead pale and tresses pure . 

FaL Our city trusted me its miseries. 
And I am come. 

Guib, So much for taste ! But " come,'' — 
So may you be, for anything I know. 
To beg the Pope's cross, or Sir Clugnet's daugh- 
ter, 275 
And with an equal chance you get all three. 
If it was ever worth your while to come. 
Was not the proper way worth finding too ? 

FaL Straight to the palace-portal, sir, I came — 

Guib. — And said ? — 

FaL — That I had brought the miseries 280 

Of a whole city to relieve. 

Guib. — Which saying 

Won your admittance ? You saw me, indeed. 
And here, no doubt, you stand : as certainly. 
My intervention, I shall not dispute. 
Procures you audience; which, if I procure, — 285 

271 Complete. A, Completes. 

285 'which, if I procure. A, but, if so I do. 



98 Colombe'0 llBtrtljDa^ [act i. 

That paper 's closely written — by Saint Paul, 
Here flock the Wrongs, follow the Remedies, 
Chapter and verse. One, Two, A, B and C ! 
Perhaps you 'd enter, make a reverence. 
And launch these " miseries " from first to last ? 290 

VaL How should they let me pause or turn 
aside ? 

Gauc. (to Valence). My worthy sir, one ques- 
tion ! You 've come straight 
From Cleves, you tell us ; heard you any talk 
At Cleves about our lady ? 

VaL Much. 

Gauc. And what ? 

VaL Her wish was to redress all wrongs she 
knew. ^95 

Gauc. That, you believed ? 

VaL You see me, sir ! 

Gauc. — Nor stopped 

Upon the road from Cleves to Juliers here. 
For any — rumours you might find afloat ? 

VaL I had my townsmen's wrongs to busy me. 

Gauc. This is the lady's birthday, do you 
know ? 300 

— Her day of pleasure ? 

VaL — That the great, I know. 

For pleasure born, should still be on the watch 
To exclude pleasure when a duty offers : 
Even as, for duty born, the lowly too 



Scene I.] €olOmht'6 Wittf^U^ 99 

May ever snatch a pleasure if in reach : s^^S 

Both will have plenty of their birthright, sir ! 
Gauc. {aside to Guibert). Sir Guibert, here 's 
your man ! No scruples now — 
You '11 never find his like ! Time presses hard. 
I 've seen your drift and Adolf's too, this while. 
But you can't keep the hour of audience back l^^ 
Much longer, and at noon the Prince arrives. 
{Pointing to Valence,^ Entrust him with it — 
fool no chance away ! 
Guib. Him? 
Gauc, — With the missive ! What 's the 

man to her ? 
Guib. No bad thought ! Yet, 't is yours, who 
ever played 
The tempting serpent : else 't were no bad 

thought ! 315 

I should — and do — mistrust it for your sake, 
Or else ... 

Enter an Official who communicates with Adolf. 

Adolf. The Duchess will receive the court. 
Guib. Give us a moment, Adolf! Valence, 
friend, 
I 'II help you. We of the service, you 're to 

mark. 
Have special entry, while the herd . . . the folk 320 

312 him. Italicized in A. 320 folk. A, folks. 



L.ofC. 



100 Colombe'g Birtl^lia^ [act i. 

Outside, gets access through our help alone ; 

— Well, it is so, was so, and I suppose 

So ever will be : your natural lot is, therefore, 

To wait your turn and opportunity. 

And probably miss both. Now, I engage 325 

To set you, here and in a minute's space. 

Before the lady, with full leave to plead 

Chapter and verse, and A, and B, and C, 

To heart's content. 

Val. I grieve that I must ask, — 

This being, yourself admit, the custom here, — 330 
To what the price of such a favour mounts ? 

Guib, Just so ! You 're not without a cour- 
tier's tact. 
Little at court, as your quick instinct prompts, 
Do such as we without a recompense. 

Val. Yours is ? — 

Guih. A trifle : here 's a document 335 

'T is some one's duty to present her Grace — 
I say, not mine — these say, not theirs — such 

points 
Have weight at court. Will you relieve us all 
And take it ? Just say, " I am bidden lay 
" This paper at the Duchess' feet ! " 

Val, No more ? 340 

I thank you, sir ! 

321 gets. A, get. 330-331 This being . . . mounts. A reads: 

From this yourself admit the custom here. 
What will the price of such a favour be ? 



Scene I.] ColOtttbe'g ilBlttl^tia^ lOI 

Adolf. Her Grace receives the court. 

Guih, (aside). Now, sursum cor da ^ quoth the 
mass-priest ! Do — 
Whoever 's my kind saint, do let alone 
These pushings to and fro, and pullings back ; 
Peaceably let me hang o' the devil's arm 345 

The downward path, if you can't pluck me off 
Completely ! Let me live quite his, or yours ! 
The Courtiers begin to range themselves^ 
and move toward the door. 
After me. Valence ! So, our famous Cleves 
Lacks bread ? Yet don't we gallants buy their 

lace ? 
And dear enough — it beggars me, I know, 35^ 
To keep my very gloves fringed properly. 
This, Valence, is our Great State Hall you cross ; 
Yon gray urn 's veritable marcasite. 
The Pope's gift : and those salvers testify 
The Emperor. Presently you '11 set your foot 355 
. . . But you don't speak, friend Valence ! 
VaL I shall speak. 

Gauc, {aside to Guiheri), Guibert — it were 
no such ungraceful thing 
If you and I, at first, seemed horror-struck 
With the bad news. Look here, what you shall 

do! 
Suppose you, first, clap hand to sword and cry 360 
"Yield strangers our allegiance? First I'll perish 



102 Colombe'g llBirtltliap [act i. 

" Beside your Grace ! " — and so give me the 

cue 
To ... 

Guib, — Clap your hand to note-book and 
jot down 
That to regale the Prince with ? I conceive. 
{To Valence), Do, Valence^ speak, or I shall half 

suspect 365 

You 're plotting to supplant us, me the first, 
r the lady's favour ! Is 't the grand harangue 
You mean to make, that thus engrosses you ? 
— Which of her virtues you '11 apostrophize ? 
Or is 't the fashion you aspire to start, 37° 

Of that close-curled, not unbecoming hair ? 
Or what else ponder you ? 

Val. My townsmen's wrongs. 



ACT 11. 

NOON. 

Scene. — The Presence-chamher, 

The Duchess and Sabyne, 

The Duchess, Announce that I am ready for 

the court ! 
Sabyne. 'T is scarcely audience-hour, I think ; 
your Grace 
May best consult your own relief, no doubt, 
And shun the crowd : but few can have arrived. 
Duch. Let those not yet arrived, then, keep 
away ! 
'T was me, this day last year at Ravestein, 
You hurried. It has been full time, beside. 
This half-hour. Do you hesitate ? 

Sab. Forgive me! 

Duch, Stay, Sabyne ; let me hasten to make 
sure 
Of one true thanker : here with you begins 
My audience, claim you first its privilege ! 
It is my birth's event they celebrate : 
You need not wish me more such happy days. 
But — ask some favour ! Have you none to ask ? 

4 but few can ha've arrived. A, but if there's few arrived. 



1 04 Colombo's llBtrtl^lJa^ [act n. 

Has Adolf none, then ? this was far from least 15 
Of much I waited for impatiently, 
Assure yourself! It seemed so natural 
Your gift, beside this bunch of river-bells. 
Should be the power and leave of doing good 
To you, and greater pleasure to myself. 20 

You ask my leave to-day to marry Adolf? 
The rest is my concern. 

Sab. Your Grace is ever 

Our lady of dear Ravestein, — but, for Adolf . . . 
Duch. " But " ? You have not, sure, changed 
in your regard 
And purpose towards him ? 
Sab. We change ? 

Duch. Well then ? Well ? 25 

Sab. How could we two be happy, and, most 
like. 
Leave Juliers, when — when . . . but 't is au- 
dience-time ! 
Duch. 'When, if you left me, I were left 
indeed ! " 
Would you subjoin that ? — Bid the court 

approach ! — 
Why should we play thus with each other, 

Sabyne ? 30 

ij It seemed so natural. A, So natural it seemed. 

19 of doing good. A, to do you good. 

20 Not in first edition. 
25 TFe. Italicized in A. 



Scene I.] €(A0mhf6 Witt^U^ IO5 

Do I not know, if courtiers prove remiss, 
If friends detain me, and get blame for it, 
There is a cause ? Of last year's fervid throng 
Scarce one half comes now. 

Sab. {aside). One half? No, alas ! 

Duch. So can the mere suspicion of a cloud 35 
Over my fortunes, strike each loyal heart. 
They 've heard of this Prince Berthold ; and, 

forsooth. 
Some foolish arrogant pretence he makes. 
May grow more foolish and more arrogant. 
They please to apprehend ! I thank their love. 40 
Admit them ! 

Sah. {aside). How much has she really learned ? 

Duch. Surely, whoever 's absent, Tristan 
waits ? 
— Or at least Romuald, whom my father raised 
From nothing — come, he 's faithful to me, come! 
(Sabyne, I should but be the prouder — yes, 45 
The fitter to comport myself aright) 
Not Romuald ? Xavier — what said he to that ? 
For Xavier hates a parasite, I know ! 

Sabyne goes out. 

Duch. Well, sunshine 's everywhere, and 
summer too. 
Next year 't is the old place again, perhaps — 5° 

38 Some foolish. A, Each foolish. 39 May . . . arrogant, 
A, More foolish and more arrogant may grow. 



1 06 Colombe's llBirtl^Da^ [act ii. 

The water-breeze again, the birds again. 

— It cannot be ! It is too late to be ! 
What part had I, or choice in all of it ? 
Hither they brought me ; I had not to think 
Nor care, concern myself with doing good 
Or ill, my task was just — to live, — to live. 
And, answering ends there was no need explain, 
To render Juliers happy — so they said. 

All could not have been falsehood : some was 

love. 
And wonder and obedience. I did all 
They looked for : why then cease to do it now ? 
Yet this is to be calmly set aside, 
And — ere next birthday's dawn, for aught I 

know. 
Things change, a claimant may arrive, and I . . . 
It cannot nor it shall not be ! His right ? 
Well then, he has the right, and I have not, 

— But who bade all of you surround my life 
And close its growth up with your ducal crown 
Which, plucked off rudely, leaves me perishing ? 
I could have been like one of you, — loved, 

hoped. 
Feared, lived, and died like one of you — but 

you 
Would take that life away and give me this. 
And I will keep this ! I will face you ! Come ! 

66 and I ha've not. A, I have it not. 



Scene I.] Colottibe's llBirtljDa^ 107 

Enter the Courtiers and Valence, 
The Courtiers, Many such happy mornings 

to your Grace ! 
Duch, {aside ^ as they pay their devoir^ The 

same words, the same faces, — the same 

love ! 75 

I have been overfearful. These are few ; 
But these, at least, stand firmly : these are mine. 
As many come as may ; and if no more, 
^T is that these few suffice — they do suffice ! 
What succour may not next year bring me ? 

Plainly, 80 

I feared too soon. {To the Courtiers,^ I thank 

you, sirs : all thanks ! 
Valence {aside ^ as the Duchess passes from one 

group to another^ conversing), 'T is she — 

the vision this day last year brought. 
When, for a golden moment at our Cleves, 
She tarried in her progress hither. Cleves 
Chose me to speak its welcome, and I spoke 85 

— Not that she could have noted the recluse 

— Ungainly, old before his time — who gazed. 
Well, Heaven's gifts are not wasted, and that 

gaze 
Kept, and shall keep me to the end, her own ! 
She was above it — but so would not sink 9° 

My gaze to earth ! The People caught it, hers — 
Thenceforward, mine ; but thus entirely mine, 



1 08 Colombe'0 llBirtl^tiaB [act ii. 

Who shall affirm, had she not raised my soul 
Ere she retired and left me — them ? She 

turns — 
There 's all her wondrous face at once ! The 

ground 95 

Reels and . . . {suddenly occupying himself with 

his paper). 
These wrongs of theirs I have to plead! 
Duch. {to the Courtiers). Nay, compliment 

enough ! and kindness' self 
Should pause before it wish me more such years. 
'T was fortunate that thus, ere youth escaped, 
I tasted life's pure pleasure — one such, pure, 100 
Is worth a thousand, mixed — and youth 's for 

pleasure : 
Mine is received ; let my age pay for it. 

Gaucelme. So, pay, and pleasure paid for, 

thinks your Grace, 
Should never go together ? 

Guibert. How, Sir Gaucelme ? 

Hurry one's feast down unenjoyingly 105 

At the snatched breathing-intervals of work ? 
As good you saved it till the dull day's-end 
When, stiff and sleepy, appetite is gone. 
Eat first, then work upon the strength of food ! 

Duch. True : you enable me to risk my future, no 
By giving me a past beyond recall. 

109 Not in first edition. 



Scene I.] ColOttlbrS BirtJ^Da^ IO9 

I lived, a girl, one happy leisure year : 
Let me endeavour to be the Duchess now ! 
And so, — what news. Sir Guibert, spoke you 
of? 

As they advance a little^ and Guibert 
speaks — 
— That gentleman ? — 

VaL (aside). I feel her eyes on me. 115 

Guih, {to Valence). The Duchess, sir, inclines 
to hear your suit. 
Advance ! He is from Cleves. 

Val. {coming forward. Aside). Their wrongs 

— their wrongs ! 
Duch. And you, sir, are from Cleves ? How 
fresh in mind. 
The hour or two I passed at queenly Cleves ! 
She entertained me bravely, but the best 120 

Of her good pageant seemed its standers-by 
With insuppressive joy on every face ! 
What says my ancient famous happy Cleves ? 
Val. Take the truth, lady — you are made 
for truth ! 
So think my friends : nor do they less deserve 125 
The having you to take it, you shall think. 
When you know all — nay, when you only 
know 

112 I It'ved . . .year. A, A girl one happy leisure year I lived. 

113 to he the Duchess. A, to be Duchess. 120 me. A, us. 
125 nor do they less deser've. A, nor less do they deserve. 



7 

1 1 o Colombc'0 llBirtl^lia^ [ act h. 

How, on that day you recollect at Cleves, 

When the poor acquiescing multitude 

Who thrust themselves with all their woes apart i3< 

Into unnoticed corners, that the few. 

Their means sufficed to muster trappings for. 

Might fill the foreground, occupy your sight 

With joyous faces fit to bear away 

And boast of as a sample of all Cleves 13 

— How, when to daylight these crept out once 

more. 
Clutching, unconscious, each his empty rags 
Whence the scant coin, which had not half 

bought bread. 
That morn he shook forth, counted piece by 

piece. 
And, well-advisedly, on perfumes spent them 14c 
To burn, or flowers to strew, before your path 

— How, when the golden flood of music and 

bliss 
Ebbed, as their moon retreated, and again 
Left the sharp black-point rocks of misery bare 

— Then I, their friend, had only to suggest 145 
" Saw she the horror as she saw the pomp ! " 
And as one man they cried " He speaks the 

truth : 
" Show her the horror ! Take from our own 
mouths 

137 unconscious. A, inconscious. 

140 on perfumes spent them. A, on perfumes spent. 



Scene I.] Colottibe'iS llBtrtl^tiap 1 1 1 

" Our wrongs and show them, she will see 

them too ! " 
This they cried, lady ! I have brought the 

wrongs. 150 

Duch, Wrongs ? Cleves has wrongs — ap- 
parent now and thus ? 
I thank you. In that paper ? Give it me ! 
VaL (There, Cleves !) In this ! (What did 
I promise, Cleves ?) 
Our weavers, clothiers, spinners are reduced 
Since . . . Oh, I crave your pardon ! I forget 155 
I buy the privilege of this approach. 
And promptly would discharge my debt. I lay 
This paper humbly at the Duchess' feet. 

Presenting Guiberfs paper. 
Guib. Stay ! for the present . . . 
Duch. Stay, sir ? I take aught 

That teaches me their wrongs with greater pride 160 
Than this your ducal circlet. Thank you, sir ! 
The Duchess reads hastily ; then^ turn- 
ing to the Courtiers — 
What have I done to you ? Your deed or mine 
Was it, this crowning me ? I gave myself 
No more a title to your homage, no. 
Than church-flowers, born this season, wrote 

the words 165 

151 apparent noiu and thus f A, which now and thus I know ? 

158 This. Italicized in A. 

165 ivrote the ivords. A, gave the words. 



1 1 2 Colombe'fi HBtptl^tia^ [act ii. 

In the saint's-book that sanctified them first. 
For such a flower, you plucked me ; well, you 

erred — 
Well, 't was a weed ; remove the eye-sore quick ! 
But should you not remember it has lain 
Steeped in the candles' glory, palely shrined, 170 
Nearer God's Mother than most earthly things ? 

— That if 't be faded 't is with prayer's sole 

breath — 
That the one day it boasted was God's day ? 
Still, I do thank you ! Had you used respect, 
Here might I dwindle to my last white leaf, 175 
Here lose life's latest freshness, which even yet 
May yield some wandering insect rest and food : 
So, fling me forth, and — all is best for all ! 
{After a pause.^ Prince Berthold, who art 

Juliers' Duke it seems — 
The King's choice, and the Emperor's, and the 

Pope's — 180 

Be mine, too ! Take this People ! Tell not me 
Of rescripts, precedents, authorities, 

— But take them, from a heart that yearns to 

give ! 
Find out their love, — I could not ; find their 

fear, — 
I would not; find their like, — I never shall, iS.j |, 

174 Still. A, But. 175 my last. A, the last. ( \ 

1 76 Here lose . . . yet. A, Till losing the poor relic which even yet. 
180 The first edition transposes King's and Pope's. 
185 ne'ver shall. A, never will. 



£ CENE I.] €olomhf& Witt\)U^ 1 1 3 

Among the flowers / Taking off her coronet. 

Colombe of Ravestein 
Thanks God she is no longer Duchess here ! 
VaL (advancing to Guiberi), Sir Guibert, 
knight, they call you — this of mine 
Is the first step I ever set at court. 
You dared make me your instrument, I find ; 190 
For that, so sure as you and I are men. 
We reckon to the utmost presently : 
But as you are a courtier and I none. 
Your knowledge may instruct me. I, already, 
Have too far outraged, by my ignorance 195 

Of courtier-ways, this lady, to proceed 
A second step and risk addressing her : 

— I am degraded — you let me address ! 
Out of her presence, all is plain enough 

What I shall do — but in her presence, too, 200 

Surely there 's something proper to be done. 

{To the others^ You, gentles, tell me if I guess 
aright — 

May I not strike this man to earth ? 

The Courtiers (as Guibert springs forward^ with- 
holding hint). Let go ! 

— The clothiers' spokesman, Guibert ? Grace 

a churl ? 
Duch. (to Valence^ Oh, be acquainted with 

your party, sir ! 205 

He 's of the oldest lineage Juliers boasts ; 



1 14 Colombe'g llBirtl^Ua^ [act ii. 

A lion crests him for a cognizance ; 

'' Scorning to waver " — that 's his 'scutcheon's 

word; 
His office with the new Duke — probably 
The same in honour as with me; or more, 210 
By so much as this gallant turn deserves. 
He 's now, I dare say, of a thousand times 
The rank and influence that remain with her 
Whose part you take ! So, lest for taking it 
You suffer ... 

FaL I may strike hirn then to earth ?2i5 

Guib, (^falling on his knee). Great and dear 
lady, pardon me ! Hear once ! 
Believe me and be merciful — be just ! 
I could not bring myself to give that paper 
Without a keener pang than I dared meet 

— And so felt Clugnet here, and Maufroy here 220 

— No one dared meet it. Protestation's cheap, — 
But, if to die for you did any good, 

{To Gaucelme,) Would not I die, sir? Say your 

worst of me ! 
But it does no good, that 's the mournful truth. 
And since the hint of a resistance, even, 225 

Would just precipitate, on you the first, 
A speedier ruin — I shall not deny. 
Saving myself indubitable pain, 
I thought to give you pleasure (who might say ?) 

12,^ give you pleasure. A, get you pleasure. 



Scene I. ] Colottibe'g llBirtljtiap 1 1 5 

By showing that your only subject found 230 

To carry the sad notice, was the man 

Precisely ignorant of its contents ; 

A nameless, mere provincial advocate ; 

One whom 't was like you never saw before, 

Never would see again. All has gone wrong; 235 

But I meant right, God knows, and you, I trust ! 

Duch. A nameless advocate, this gentleman ? 
— (I pardon you. Sir Guibert ! ) 

Guib, {risings to Valence). Sir, and you ? 

VaL — Rejoice that you are lightened of a 
load. 
Now, you have only me to reckon with. 240 

Duch. One I have never seen, much less 
obliged ? 

Val. Dare I speak, lady ? 

Duch. Dare you ! Heard you not 

I rule no longer ? 

Val. Lady, if your rule 

Were based alone on such a ground as these 
(^pointing to the Courtiers) Could furnish you, 

— abjure it ! They have hidden 245 

A source of true dominion from your sight. 

Duch. You hear them — no such source is 
left . . . 

Val. Hear Cleves ! 

Whose haggard craftsmen rose to starve this day, 

230 By . . . found. A, In that your only subject we could find. 
248 to stawe this day. A, this day to starve. 



1 1 6 Colombe'0 llBirtljiJa^ [act ii. 

Starve now, and will lie down at night to starve, 
Sure of a like to-morrow — but as sure 250 

Of a most unlike morrow-after-that. 
Since end things must, end howsoe'er things may. 
What curbs the brute-force instinct in its hour ? 
What makes — instead of rising, all as one. 
And teaching fingers, so expert to wield 255 

Their tool, the broadsword's play or carbine's 

trick, 
— What makes that there 's an easier help, they 

think. 
For you, whose name so few of them can spell, 
Whose face scarce one in every hundred saw, — 
You simply have to understand their wrongs, 260 
And wrongs will vanish — so, still trades are 

plied. 
And swords lie rusting, and myself stand here ? 
There is a vision in the heart of each 
Of justice, mercy, wisdom, tenderness 
To wrong and pain, and knowledge of its cure : 265 
And these embodied in a woman's form 
That best transmits them, pure as first received. 
From God above her, to mankind below. 

249 Star've noTv, . . . starve. A, Are starving now, and 
will lie down at night. 

253 Not in first edition. 258 For you. A, And you. 

259 in every. A, for every. 

260 Tou simply . . . ivrongs. A, That you have simply to 
receive their wrongs. 

263-268 These six lines are not in first edition. 



Scene I. ] ColOtttbe'S llBiltl^tiap 1 1 7 

Will you derive your rule from such a ground, 
Or rather hold it by the suffrage, say, ^70 

Of this man — this — and this ? 

Duch. {after a pause). You come from Cleves? 
How many are at Cleves of such a mind ? 
VaL {from his paper), " We, all the manufac- 
turers of Cleves — " 
Duch. Or stay, sir — lest I seem too covet- 
ous — 
Are you my subject ? such as you describe, 275 
Am I to you, though to no other man ? 

VaL {from his paper). — " Valence, ordained 

your Advocate at Cleves — '' 
Duch. {replacing the coronet). Then I remain 
Cleves' Duchess ! Take you note. 
While Cleves but yields one subject of this 

stamp, 
I stand her lady till she waves me ofF! 280 

For her sake, all the Prince claims I withhold ; 
Laugh at each menace ; and, his power defying. 
Return his missive with its due contempt ! 

Casting it away, 
Guib. {picking it up). — Which to the Prince 
I will deliver, lady, 
(Note it down, Gaucelme) — with your message 

too ! 285 

Duch. I think the office is a subject's, sir ! 

271 Of this man . . and this. A, Of this — and this — and this. 



1 1 8 Colotttbe'g llBtrtl^lia^ [ act h. 

— Either . . . how style you him ? — my special 

guarder 
The Marshal's — for who knows but violence 
May follow the delivery ? — Or, perhaps, 
My Chancellor's — for law may be to urge 290 
On its receipt ! — Or, even my Chamberlain's — 
For I may violate established form ! 
{To Valence.) Sir, — for the half-hour till this 

service ends, 
Will you become all these to me ? 

FaL (^falling on his knee). My liege ! 

Duch. Give me ! 

The Courtiers present their badges of office. 
{Putting them by.) Whatever was their virtue 
once, 295 

They need new consecration. Raising Valence. 

Are you mine ? 
I will be Duchess yet ! She retires. 

The Courtiers. Our Duchess yet ! 

A glorious lady ! Worthy love and dread ! 
I '11 stand by her. — And I, whate'er betide ! 
Guib. (to Valence). Well done, well done, sir ! 
I care not who knows, 300 

You have done nobly and I envy you — 
Tho' I am but unfairly used, I think : 
For when one gets a place like this I hold. 
One gets too the remark that its mere wages, 

296 TAey need. A, There needs. 



Scene I] €0l0mhf fS Witt\)J}^\f 1 1 9 

The pay and the preferment, make ou,r prize. 3^5 
Talk about zeal and faith apart from these, 
We 're laughed at — much would zeal and faith 

subsist 
Without these also ! Yet, let these be stopped, 
Our wages discontinue, — then, indeed. 
Our zeal and faith, (we hear on every side,) 310 
Are not released — having been pledged away 
I wonder, for what zeal and faith in turn ? 
Hard money purchased me my place ! No, no — 
I 'm right, sir — but your wrong is better still, 
If I had time and skill to argue it. 315 

Therefore, I say, I '11 serve you how you 

please — 
If you like, — fight you, as you seem to wish — 
(The kinder of me that, in sober truth, 
I never dreamed I did you any harm) . . . 
Gauc. — Or, kinder still, you '11 introduce, no 
doubt, 3*0 

His merits to the Prince who 's just at hand. 
And let no hint drop he 's made Chancellor 
And Chamberlain and Heaven knows what be- 
side ! 
Clugnet (to Valence). You stare, young sir, and 
threaten ! Let me say. 
That at your age, when first I came to court 325 

309 Not in first edition. 312 for ivhat <zeal. A, with what 
zeal. 313 Hard money. A, 'T was money. 



1 20 Colombe'0 )15irtl^J)a^ [act n. 

I was not much above a gentleman ; 
While now . . . 

Val. You are Head-Lackey ? With your 
office 
I have not yet been graced, sir ! 

Other Courtiers {to Clugnet). Let him talk ! 
Fidelity, disinterestedness. 

Excuse so much ! Men claim my worship ever 3 30 
Who staunchly and steadfastly . . . 
Enter Adolf. 

Adolf. The Prince arrives. 

Courtiers. Ha ? How ? 

Adolf. He leaves his guard a stage behind 

At Aix, and enters almost by himself. 

1st Court. The Prince ! This foolish business 
puts all out. 

2nd Court. Let Gaucelme speak first ! 

^rd Court. Better I began 335 

About the state of Juliers : should one say 
All 's prosperous and inviting him ? 

/^th Court. — Or rather. 

All 's prostrate and imploring him ? 

^th Court. That 's best. 

Where 's the Cleves' paper, by the way ? 

/ph Court, {to Valence). Sir — sir — 

If you '11 but lend that paper — trust it me, 340 
I '11 warrant . . . 



330 claim. A, claimed. 331 staunchly. A, stanch. 

340 lend. A, give. 



J 



Scene L] ColOttlbe'S IBittl^Oa^ 121 

^th Court. Softly, sir — the Marshal's 

duty ! 

Clugn. Has not the Chamberlain a hearing 
first 
By virtue of his patent ? 

Gauc. Patents ? — Duties ? 

All that, my masters, must begin again ! 
One word composes the whole controversy : 345 
We 're simply now — the Prince's ! 

The Others. Ay — the Prince's ! 

Enter Sabyne. 

Sabyne. Adolf! Bid . . . Oh, no time for 
ceremony ! 
Where 's whom our lady calls her only subject ? 
She needs him. Who is here the Duchess's ? 
Val. {starting from his reverie^ Most grate- 
fully I follow to her feet. 35© 



ACT III. 



AFTERNOON. 



Scene. — The Vestibule. 

Enter Prince Berthold and Melchior. 

Berthold. A thriving little burgh this Juliers 
looks. 
(^Half-apart.) Keep Juliers, and as good you kept 

Cologne : 
Better try Aix, though ! — 

Melchior. Please 't your Highness speak ? 

Berth, {as before). Aix, Cologne, Frankfort, 

— Milan ; — Rome ! — 
Melch. The Grave, 

More weary seems your Highness, I remark. 
Than sundry conquerors whose path I 've 

watched 
Through fire and blood to any prize they gain. 
I could well wish you, for your proper sake, 
Had met some shade of opposition here 
— Found a blunt seneschal refuse unlock. 
Or a scared usher lead your steps astray. 
You must not look for next achievement's palm 
So easily : this will hurt your conquering. 
Berth. My next ? Ay, as you say, my next 
and next ! 

13 easily. A, easy. 



Scene I] Colottibe's Btrtl^nas 1 23 

Well, I am tired, that 's truth, and moody too, 15 

This quiet entrance-morning : listen why ! 

Our little burgh, now, Juliers — 't is indeed 

One link, however insignificant. 

Of the great chain by which I reach my hope, 

— A link I must secure ; but otherwise, ^o 

You M wonder I esteem it worth my grasp. 

Just see what life is, with its shifts and turns ! 

It happens now — this very nook — to be 

A place that once . . . not a long while since^ 

neither — 
When I lived an ambiguous hanger-on 25 

Of foreign courts, and bore my claims about, 
Discarded by one kinsman, and the other 
A poor priest merely, — then, I say, this place 
Shone my ambition's object ; to be Duke — 
Seemed then, what to be Emperor seems now. 30 
My rights were far from judged as plain and sure 
In those days as of late, I promise you : 
And 't was my day-dream. Lady Colombe here 
Might e'en compound the matter, pity me. 
Be struck, say, with my chivalry and grace — 35 
(I was a boy !) — bestow her hand at length. 
And make me Duke, in her right if not mine. 
Here am I, Duke confessed, at Juliers now. 

21 esteem. A, esteemed. 24 not a long. A, but a short. 
31 judged as plain and sure. A, being judged apparent. The 
second edition had : far from being judged as plain. 



1 24 Colombo's Birtl^lia^ [act m. 

Harken : if ever I be Emperor, 
Remind me what I felt and said to-day ! 4° 

Melch. All this consoles a bookish man like 
me. 
■ — And so will weariness cling to you. Wrong, 
Wrong ! Had you sought the lady's court your- 
self, — 
Faced the redoubtables composing it, - 
Flattered this, threatened that man, bribed the 

other, — 45 

Pleaded by writ and word and deed, your cause, — 
Conquered a footing inch by painful inch, — 
And, after long years' struggle, pounced at last 
On her for prize, — the right life had been lived, 
And justice done to divers faculties 5° 

Shut in that brow. Yourself were visible 
As you stood victor, then ; whom now — (your 

pardon !) 
I am forced narrowly to search and see. 
So are you hid by helps — this Pope, your uncle — 
Yourcousin, the other King! You are a mind, — 55 
They, body : too much of mere legs-and-arms 
Obstructs the mind so ! Match these with their 
like : 

40 Remind me . . . to-day. A, Will you remind me this, I feel 
and say ? 44 Not in first edition. 45 that man. A, that, and. 
47 Conquered . . . inch. A, Conquered yourself a footing inch by 
inch. 51 Shut. A, Safe. 52 then ; ivhom. A, you, whom. 
53 I am forced narroivly. A, Narrowly am I forced. 54 So are 
you . . . uncle. A, So by your uncle are you hid, this Pope. 



Scene L] COlOttlbe'S ^IBlttlllia^ 1 25 

Match mind with mind ! 

I Berth, And where 's your mind to match ? 

iThey show me legs-and-arms to cope withal ! 
I 'd subjugate this city — where 's its mind ? 60 
The Courtiers enter slowly. 
Melch, Got out of sight when you came troops 
and all ! 
And in its stead, here greets you flesh-and-blood : 
A smug oeconomy of both, this first ! 

As Clugnet hows obsequiously. 
Well done, gout, all considered ! — I may go ? 
Berth. Help me receive them ! 
Melch. Oh, they just will say 65 

What yesterday at Aix their fellows said — 
At Treves, the day before ! Sir Prince, my friend, 
Why do you let your life slip thus ? — Mean- 
time, 
I have my little Juliers to achieve — 
The understanding this tough Platonist, 70 

Your holy uncle disinterred, Amelius : 
Lend me a company of horse and foot. 
To help me through his tractate — gain my 
Duchy ! 
Berth. And Empire, after that is gained, will 

be—? 
Melch. To help me through your uncle's 
comment. Prince ! Goes. 75 

58 Match mind. A, But mind. 67 At, A, And. 



126 Colombe'0 ilBirtl^aa^ [act m. 

Berth. Ah ? Well : he o'er-refines — the 
scholar's fault ! 
How do I let my life slip ? Say, this life, 
I lead now, differs from the common life 
Of other men in mere degree, not kind, 
Of joys and griefs, — still there is such de- 
gree — 
Mere largeness in a life is something, sure, — 
Enough to care about and struggle for. 
In this world : for this world, the size of things ; 
The sort of things, for that to come, no doubt. 
A great is better than a little aim : 
And when I wooed Priscilla's rosy mouth 
And failed so, under that gray convent-wall, 
Was I more happy than I should be now 

By this time^ the Courtiers are ranged 
before him. 
If failing of my Empire ? Not a whit. 
— Here comes the mind, it once had tasked me 

sore 
To baffle, but for my advantages ! 
All 's best as 't is ; these scholars talk and talk. 

Seats himself. 
The Courtiers. Welcome our Prince to Ju- 
liers ! — to his heritage ! 
Our dutifullest service proffer we ! 

80 Of joys . . . degree. A, Of joys and sorrows, — suchdegree 
there is. 81 Not in first edition. 

91 hut for my ad'vantages. A, let advantages alone. 



Scene I. ] Colottibe'g llBirtl^Da^ 1 2 7 

Clugnet. I, please your Highness, having ex- 
ercised 95 
The function of Grand Chamberlain at court, 
With much acceptance, as men testify . . . 

Berth. I cannot greatly thank you, gentlemen ! 
The Pope declares my claim to the Duchy 

founded 
On strictest justice — you concede it, therefore, loo 
I do not wonder : and the kings my friends 
Protest they mean to see such claim enforced, — 
You easily may offer to assist. 
But there 's a slight discretionary power 
To serve me in the matter, you 've had long, 105 
Though late you use it. This is well to say — 
But could you not have said it months ago ? 
I 'm not denied my own Duke's truncheon, 

true — 
'T is flung me — I stoop down, and from the 

ground 
Pick it, with all you placid standers-by: no 

And now I have it, gems and mire at once, 
Grace go with it to my soiled hands, you say ! 

Guihert. (By Paul, the advocate our doughty 
friend 
Cuts the best figure !) 

Gaucelme, If our ignorance 

May have offended, sure our loyalty ... 115 

95 please. A, please 't. 102 Protest . . . see. A, Protesting 
they will see. 103 assist. A, assist us. 



128 Colombrs llBirtl^tia^ [actih. 

Berth. Loyalty ? Yours ? Oh — of your- 
selves you speak ! 
I mean the Duchess all this time, I hope ! 
And since I have been forced repeat my claims 
As if they never had been urged before, 
As I began, so must I end, it seems. 120 

The formal answer to the grave demand ! 
What says the lady ? 

Courtiers (one to another^. 1st Courtier. Mar- 
shal ! 2nd Court. Orator ! 

Guib. A variation of our mistress' way ! 
Wipe off his boots' dust, Clugnet ! — that, he 
waits ! 

1st Court. Your place ! 

2nd Court. Just now it was your own ! 

Guib. The devil's ! 125 

Berth, {to Guibert). Come forward, friend — 
you with the paper, there ! 
Is Juliers the first city I 've obtained ? 
By this time, I may boast proficiency 
In each decorum of the circumstance. 
Give it me as she gave it — the petition, 130 

Demand, you style it ! What 's required, in brief ? 
What title's reservation, appanage's 
Allowance ? I heard all at Treves, last week. 

Gauc. {to Guibert). " Give it him as she gave 
it ! " 

119 urged. A, made. 

120 so must I endy it ^eems. A, so probably I end. 



Scene I. ] ColOmbe'fi Mttl^^ 1 2() 

Guib. And why not ? 

{To Berthold). The lady crushed your summons 

thus together, 135 

And bade me, with the very greatest scorn 
So fair a frame could hold, inform you . . . 

Courtiers Stop — 

Idiot ! 

Guib, — Inform you she denied your 

claim. 
Defied yourself! (I tread upon his heel, 
The blustering advocate !) 

Berth. By heaven and earth ! 140 

Dare you jest, sir ? 

Guib. Did they at Treves, last week ? 

Berth, {starting up). Why then, I look much 
bolder than I knew. 
And you prove better actors than I thought : 
Since, as I live, I took you as you entered 
For just so many dearest friends of mine, 145 

Fled from the sinking to the rising power 
— The sneaking' St crew, in short, I e'er de- 
spised ! 
Whereas, I am alone here for the moment, 
With every soldier left behind at Aix ! 
Silence ? That means the worst ? I thought as 

much! 150 

What follows next then ? 

141 Did they. A, Did he. 



1 30 Colombe'0 llBirtl^tia? [ act m. 

Courtiers. Gracious Prince, he raves ! 

Guib. He asked the truth and why not get the 

truth ? 
Berth. Am I a prisoner ? Speak, will some- 
body ? 
— But why stand paltering with imbeciles ? 
Let me see her, or . . . 

Guib. Her, without her leave, 155 

Shall no one see ; she 's Duchess yet ! 

Courtiers (^footsteps without^ as they are disput- 
ing). Good chance ! 
She's here — the Lady Colombe's self! 

Berth. 'T is well ! 

{Aside.) Array a handful thus against my world ? 
Not ill done, truly ! Were not this a mind 
To match one's mind with ? Colombe ! Let us 

wait ! 160 

I failed so, under that gray convent wall ! 
She comes. 

Guib. The Duchess ! Strangers, range 

yourselves ! 

As the Duchess enters in conversation 
with Valence^ Berthold and the 
Courtiers fall back a little. 
Duchess. Presagefully it beats, presagefully. 
My heart : the right is Berthold's and not mine. 
Valence. Grant that he has the right, dare I 
mistrust 165 

152 get. A, have. 



Scene I. ] €0l0mbf& Mtt^U^ 1 3 1 

Your power to acquiesce so patiently 
As you believe, in such a dream-like change 
Of fortune — change abrupt, profound, com- 
plete ? 
Duch. Ah, the first bitterness is over now ! 
Bitter I may have felt it to confront 170 

The truth, and ascertain those natures' value 
I had so counted on ; that was a pang : 
But I did bear it, and the worst is over. 
Let the Prince take them ! 

VaL And take Juliers too ? 

— Your people without crosses, wands and 

chains — ^75 

Only with hearts ? 

Duch. There I feel guilty, sir ! 

I cannot give up what I never had : 
For I ruled these, not them — these stood be- 
tween. 
Shall I confess, sir ? I have heard by stealth 
Of Berthold from the first ; more news and 

more : 180 

Closer and closer swam the thundercloud, 
But I was safely housed with these, I knew. 
At times when to the casement I would turn, 
At a bird's passage or a flower-trail's play, 
I caught the storm's red glimpses on its edge — 185 
Yet I was sure some one of all these friends 

178 I ruled these. A, these I ruled. 

186 of all these friends. A, of those about me. 



1 3 2 Colombe'g 515trt]^6a^ [act m. 

Would interpose : I followed the bird's flight 
Or plucked the flower : some one would inter- 
pose ! 
Val. Not one thought on the People — and 

Cleves there ! 
Duch, Now, sadly conscious my real sway 

was missed, 190 

Its shadow goes without so much regret : 
Else could I not again thus calmly bid you, 
Answer Prince Berthold ! 

FaL Then you acquiesce ? 

Duch. Remember over whom it was I ruled ! 
Guih. {stepping forward^ Prince Berthold, 

yonder, craves an audience, lady ! 195 

Duch. {to Valence), I only have to turn, and I 
shall face 
Prince Berthold ! Oh, my very heart is sick ! 
It is the daughter of a line of Dukes 
This scornful insolent adventurer 
Will bid depart from my dead father's halls ! 200 
I shall not answer him — dispute with him — 
But, as he bids, depart ! Prevent it, sir ! 
Sir — but a mere day's respite ! Urge for me 
— What I shall call to mind I should have 

urged 
When time 's gone by : 't will all be mine, you 

urge ! 205 

190 N01V. A, So. 

203 but a mere day's respite. A, but a day's sole respite. 



Scene I.] Colotttbe'g llBirtl^Da^ 133 

A day — an hour — that I myself may lay 
My rule down ! 'T is too sudden — must not 

be! 
The world 's to hear of it ! Once done — for- 
ever ! 
How will it read, sir ? How be sung about ? 
Prevent it ! 

Berth, {approaching). Your frank indignation, 
lady, ^10 

Cannot escape me. Overbold I seem; 
But somewhat should be pardoned my surprise 
At this reception, — this defiance, rather. 
And if, for their and your sake, I rejoice 
Your virtues could inspire a trusty few ^^5 

To make such gallant stand in your behalf, 
I cannot but be sorry, for my own. 
Your friends should force me to retrace my steps : 
Since I no longer am permitted speak 
After the pleasant peaceful course prescribed 220 
No less by courtesy than relationship — 
Which I remember, if you once forgot. 
But never must attack pass unrepelled. 
Suffer that, through you, I demand of these. 
Who controverts my claim to Juliers ? 

213, 218, 220 Not in first edition. 214 sake. A, sakes. 
221 by. A, of. 222-224 ^hkh I . . . of theie. A reads: 
If you forgot once, I remember now ! 
But, unrepelled, attack must never pass. 
Suffer, through you, your subjects I demand. 



1 34 Colombo's llBirtl^tia^ [act m. 

Duch. — Me ^2^5 

You say, you do not speak to — 

Berth. Of your subjects 

I ask, then : whom do you accredit ? Where 
Stand those should answer ? 

VaL (advancing). The lady is alone. 

Berth. Alone, and thus ? So weak and yet so 
bold ? 

VaL I said she was alone — 

Berth. And weak, I said. 230 

VaL When is man strong until he feels alone ? 
It was some lonely strength at first, be sure, 
Created organs, such as those you seek. 
By which to give its varied purpose shape: 
And, naming the selected ministrants, 235 

Took sword, and shield, and sceptre, — each, a 

man ! 
That strength performed its work and passed its 

way : 
You see our lady : there, the old shapes stand ! 
— A Marshal, Chamberlain, and Chancellor — 
" Be helped their way, into their death put life 240 
" And find advantage ! " — so you counsel us. 
But let strength feel alone, seek help itself, — 
And, as the inland-hatched sea-creature hunts 
The sea's breast out, — as, littered 'mid the 

waves 
The desert-brute makes for the desert's joy, 245 



Scene I ] Colotttbe's llBirt^Jjap 135 

So turns our lady to her true resource, 

Passing o'er hollow fictions, worn-out types, 

— And I am first her instinct fastens on. 

And prompt I say, as clear as heart can speak. 

The People will not have you ; nor shall have ! 250 

It is not merely I shall go bring Cleves 

And fight you to the last, — though that does 

much. 
And men and children, — ay, and women too, 
Fighting for home, are rather to be feared 
Than mercenaries fighting for their pay — 255 

But, say you beat us, since such things have 

been. 
And, where this Juliers laughed, you set your 

foot 
Upon a steaming bloody plash — what then ? 
Stand you the more our lord that there you stand ? 
Lord it o'er troops whose force you concentrate, 260 
A pillared flame whereto all ardours tend — 
Lord it 'mid priests whose schemes you amplify, 
A cloud of smoke 'neath which all shadows 

brood — 
But never, in this gentle spot of earth. 
Can you become our Colombe, our play-queen, 265 
For whom, to furnish lilies for her hair, 

246, 247 Not in first edition. 248 And I. A, So, I. 249 as 
clear. A, so clear. 259 that there. A, as there. 262 ^mid 
priests. A, 'mongst priests. 266 For ivhotn. A, Whom we. 



1 36 Colombe'g llBirtl^Uap [aoh^ m. 

We 'd pour our veins forth to enrich the soil. 
— Our conqueror ? Yes! — Our despot? Yes! 

— Our Duke ? 
Know yourself, know us ! 

Berth, {who has been in thought). Know your 
lady, also ! 
{Very deferentially^ — To whom I needs must 

exculpate myself 270 

For having made a rash demand, at least. 
Wherefore to you, sir, who appear to be 
Her chief adviser, I submit my claims. 

Giving papers. 
But, this step taken, take no further step. 
Until the Duchess shall pronounce their worth. 275 
Here be our meeting-place ; at night, its time : 
Till when I humbly take the lady's leave ! 

He withdraws. As the Duchess turns 
to Valence^ the Courtiers interchange 
glances and come forward a little, a 

1st Court, So, this was their device ! 
2nd Court, No bad device ! 

jr<^ Court, You 'd say they love each other, , 
Guibert's friend 
From Cleves, and she, the Duchess ! 

267 Wed. A, Would. 273 Her chief. A, The chief. 
279 Tou' d say . . . friend. A reads : 

They love each other, Guibert's friend and she ! 

4 Court. Plainly ! 

5 Court. Pray, Guibert, what is next, to do ? 



Scene I. ] Colomfae'g llBirtJ^Ua^ 1 3 7 

^th Court. — And moreover, 280 

That all Prince Berthold comes for, is to help 
Their loves ! 

Sth Court. Pray, Guibert, what is next to do ? 

Guih. (advancing). I laid my office at the 
Duchess' foot — 

Others. And I — and I — and I ! 

Duch. I took them, sirs. 

Guih. {apart to Valence). And now, sir, I am 
simple knight again — 285 

Guibert, of the great ancient house, as yet 
That never bore affront ; whate'er your birth, — 
As things stand now, I recognize yourself 
(If you '11 accept experience of some date) 
As like to be the leading man o' the time, ^9° 

Therefore as much above me now, as I 
Seemed above you this morning. Then, I 

offered 
To fight you : will you be as generous 
And now fight me ? 

VaL Ask when my life is mine ! 

Guih. ('T is hers now !) 

Clugn. {apart to Valence^ as Guibert turns from 
him). You, sir, have insulted me 295 

Grossly, — will grant me, too, the selfsame 
favour 

28 3 / laid. A, I lay. 

285 I am simple knight again. A, simple knight again am I, 

291 Therefore. A, And so. 



1 38 €0l0m\)f& Witt^m^ [Act III. 

You 've granted him, just now, I make no ques- 
tion ? 

P^aL I promise you, as him, sir. 

Clugn. Do you so ? 

Handsomely said ! I hold you to it, sir. 
You 'II get me reinstated in my office 300 

As you will Guibert ! 

Duch, I would be alone ! 

They begin to retire slowly ; as Valence is 
about to follow — 
Alone, sir — only with my heart : you stay ! 

Gauc. You hear that ? Ah, light breaks upon 
me ! Cleves — 
It was at Cleves some man harangued us all — 
With great effect, — so those who listened said, 305 
My thoughts being busy elsewhere : was this he ? 
Guibert, — your strange, disinterested man ! 
Your uncorrupted, if uncourtly friend ! 
The modest worth you mean to patronize ! 
He cares about no Duchesses, not he — 310 

His sole concern is with the wrongs of Cleves ! 
What, Guibert ? What, it breaks on you at last ? 

Guib, Would this hall's floor were a mine's 
roof ! I 'd back 
And in her very face ... 1 

Gauc. Apply the match 

303-312 Tou hear . . . at last. Not in first edition. 

313 rd. A, ru. 



Scene I.] €olomht'& Mttl^tiap 1 39 

That fired the train, — and where would you 

be, pray ? S^S 

Guib. With him ! 

Gauc. Stand, rather, safe outside with me ! 

The mine 's charged : shall I furnish you the 

match 
And place you properly ? To the antechamber ! 
Guib. Can you? 

Gauc. Try me ! Your friend 's in fortune ! 

Guib. Quick — 

To the antechamber ! He is pale with bliss ! 320 
Gauc. No wonder ! Mark her eyes ! 
Guib. To the antechamber ! 

The Courtiers retire. 
Duch. Sir, could you know all you have done 
for me 
You were content ! You spoke, and I am saved. 
Val. Be not too sanguine, lady ! Ere you 
dream. 
That transient flush of generosity 325 

Fades off, perchance. The man, beside, is 

gone, — 
Him we might bend ; but see, the papers here — 
Inalterably his requirement stays. 
And cold hard words have we to deal with now. 

315 That fired. A, That fires, ivould. A, will. 
324 Ere you dream. A, Ere now, even. 

326 The man, beside, is gone. A, The man and mood are gone. 

327 Not in first edition. 



140 Colombe'0 515trtI)J)a^ [act m. 

In that large eye there seemed a latent pride, 330 

To self-denial not incompetent, 

But very like to hold itself dispensed 

From such a grace : however, let us hope ! 

He is a noble spirit in noble form. 

I wish he less had bent that brow to smile 335 

As with the fancy how he could subject 

Himself upon occasion to — himself ! 

From rudeness, violence, you rest secure ; 

But do not think your Duchy rescued yet ! 

Duch. You, — who have opened a new 
world to me, 34° 

Will never take the faded language up 
Of that I leave ? My Duchy — keeping it. 
Or losing it — is that my sole world now ? 

VaL 111 have I spoken if you thence despise 
Juliers ; although the lowest, on true grounds, 345 
Be worth more than the highest rule, on false : 
Aspire to rule, on the true grounds ! 

Duch. Nay, hear — 

False, I will never — rash, I would not be ! 
This is indeed my birthday — soul and body. 
Its hours have done on me the work of years. 350 
You hold the requisition : ponder it ! 
If I have right, my duty 's plain : if he — 
Say so, nor ever change a tone of voice ! 



330 seemed. A, was. 

347 Aspire to rule. A, Aspire to that. 



i 



Scene I] ColOtttbf g HBtltl^Da? I4I 

At night you meet the Prince ; meet me at eve ! 

Till when, farewell ! This discomposes you ? 355 

Believe in your own nature, and its force 

Of renovating mine ! I take my stand 

Only as under me the earth is firm : 

So, prove the first step stable, all will prove. 

That first, I choose : (^Laying her hand on his,^ — 

the next to take, choose you ! 360 

She withdraws, 
VaL {after a pause). What drew down this on 

me ? — on me, dead once. 
She thus bids live, — since all I hitherto 
Thought dead in me,youth's ardours and emprise. 
Burst into life before her, as she bids 
Who needs them. Whither will this reach, 

where end ? 365 

Her hand's print burns on mine . . . Yet she 's 

above — 
So very far above me ! All 's too plain : 
I served her when the others sank away. 
And she rewards me as such souls reward — ■ 
The changed voice, the suffusion of the cheek, 370 
The eye's acceptance, the expressive hand, 
— Reward, that 's little, in her generous thought. 
Though all to me . . . 

354 At night you meet the Prince. A, At night the Prince you 
meet. 

359 ivill pro've. A, will be. 370, 371 Not in first edition. 

372 in her generous thought. A, that is nought to her. 



142 Colombrg 31Birtl)i)ai? [act m. 

I cannot so disclaim 
Heaven's gift, nor call it other than it is ! 
She loves me ! 
{Looking at the Prince's papers^ — Which love, 

these, perchance, forbid. 375 

Can I decide against myself — pronounce 
She is the Duchess and no mate for me ? 
— Cleves, help me ! Teach me, — every hag- 
gard face, — 
To sorrow and endure ! I will do right 
Whatever be the issue. Help me, Cleves ! 380 

375 perchance, forbid. A, forbid, perchance. 



ACT IV. 

EVENING. 

Scene. — An Antechamber. 
Enter the Courtiers. 

Maufroy, Now, then, that we may speak — 
how spring this mine ? 

Gaucelme. Is Guibert ready for its match ? 
He cools ! 
Not so friend Valence with the Duchess there ! 
" Stay, Valence ! Are not you my better self? " 
And her cheek mantled — 

Guibert, Well, she loves him, sir : 

And more, — since you will have it I grow 

cool, — 
She 's right : he \ worth it. 

Gauc, For his deeds to-day ? 

Say so ! 

Guib. What should I say beside ? 

Gauc, Not this — 

For friendship's sake leave this for me to say — 
That we 're the dupes of an egregious cheat ! 
This plain unpractised suitor, who found way 
To the Duchess through the merest die's turn- 
up 



144 Colombrg Blrtl^tia^ [act iv. 

A year ago, had seen her and been seen, 
Loved and been loved. 

Guib. Impossible ! 

Gauc. — Nor say, 

How sly and exquisite a trick, moreover, 15 

Was this which — taking not their stand on facts 
Boldly, for that had been endurable, 
But worming on their way by craft, they choose 
Resort to, rather, — and which you and we, 
Sheep-like, assist them in the playing-ofF! 20 

The Duchess thus parades him as preferred. 
Not on the honest ground of preference. 
Seeing first, liking more, and there an end — 
But as we all had started equally. 
And at the close of a fair race he proved 25 

The only valiant, sage and loyal man. 
Herself, too, with the pretty fits and starts, — 
The careless, winning, candid ignorance 
Of what the Prince might challenge or forego — 
She had a hero in reserve ! What risk 
Ran she ? This deferential easy Prince 
Who brings his claims for her to ratify 
— He 's just her puppet for the nonce ! You '11 
see, — 

1 6 their stand. A, his stand. i% on their 'way by crafty they 
choose. A, on his way by craft, he chose. 20 assist them. A, assist 
him. 21 The Duchess . . . preferred. A, The fruit is, she 
prefers him to ourselves. 22 the honest ground. A, the simple 
ground. 23 Seeing . . . end. A, First seeing, liking more, and so 
an end. 27 Herself. A, And she. 32 tVho. A, That. 



Scene I.] Colombe's llBirtfttiai? 145 

Valence pronounces, as is equitable, 

Against him : off goes the confederate : 35 

As equitably, Valence takes her hand ! 

The Chancellor, You run too fast : her hand, 
no subject takes. 
Do not our archives hold her father's will ? 
That will provides against such accident. 
And gives next heir. Prince Berthold, the rever- 
sion 40 
Of Juhers, which she forfeits, wedding so. 

Gauc. I know that, well as you, — but does 
the Prince ? 
Knows Berthold, think you, that this plan, he 

helps. 
For Valence's ennoblement, — would end. 
If crowned with the success which seems its due, 45 
In making him the very thing he plays. 
The actual Duke of Juliers ? All agree 
That Colombe's title waived or set aside. 
He is next heir. 

Chan. Incontrovertibly. 

Gauc. Guibert, your match, now, to the train ! 

Guib. Enough ! 5° 

I 'm with you : selfishness is best again. 
I thought of turning honest — what a dream ! 
Let 's wake now ! 

39 That 'will , . . accident. A, Against such accident that 
will provides. 42-48 Seven lines not in first edition. 49 He is 
next heir. A, He is next heir ? 



146 Colombe'0 llBtrtl^ija^ [act iv. 

Gauc, Selfish, friend, you never were: 

'T was but a series of revenges taken 
On your unselfishness for prospering ill. 55 

But now that you 're grown wiser, what 's our 
course ? 

Guih. — Wait, I suppose, till Valence weds 
our lady, 
And then, if we must needs revenge ourselves. 
Apprise the Prince. 

Gauc, — The Prince, ere then dismissed 

With thanks for playing his mock part so well ? 60 
Tell the Prince now, sir ! Ay, this very night. 
Ere he accepts his dole and goes his way. 
Explain how such a marriage makes him Duke, 
Then trust his gratitude for the surprise ! 

Guih. — Our lady wedding Valence all the 
same 65 

55 On your . . . ///. A, Upon unselfishness that prospered ill. 
55-77 Wait . . . reneived. A reads : 

Guib. Wait, I suppose, till Valence weds our lady, 

And then apprise the Prince — 
Gauc. — Ere then, retired ? 

Tell the Prince now, sir ! Ay, this very night — 

Ere he accepts his dole and goes his way. 

Tell what has been, declare what 's like to be. 

And really makes him all he feigned himself; 

Then trust his gratitude for the surprise ! 
Guib. Good ! I am sure she '11 not disown her love. 

Throw Valence up — I wonder you see that ! 
Gauc. The shame of it — the suddenness and shame ! 

With Valence there to keep her to her word. 

And Berthold's own reproaches and disgust — 

We '11 try it ! — Not that we can venture much I 

Her confidence we've lost forever — his 

Must be to gain ! 
Guib. To-night, then, venture we ! 

Yet — may a lost love never be renewed i 



Scene I] €olomhf6 115irtl)tia^ 147 

As if the penalty were undisclosed ? 

Good ! If she loves, she '11 not disown her love, 

Throw Valence up. I wonder you see that, 

Gauc. The shame of it — the suddenness and 
shame ! 
Within her, the inclining heart — without, 70 

A terrible array of witnesses — 
And Valence by, to keep her to her word, 
With Berthold's indignation or disgust ! 
We '11 try it ! — Not that we can venture much. 
Her confidence we 've lost forever : Berthold's 75 
Is all to gain. 

Guib. To-night, then, venture we ! 

Yet — if lost confidence might be renewed ? 

Gauc. Never in noble natures ! With the base 
ones, — 
Twist off^ the crab's claw, wait a smarting-while, 
And something grows and grows and gets to be 80 
A mimic of the lost joint, just so like 
As keeps in mind it never, never will 
Replace its predecessor ! Crabs do that : 
But lop the lion's foot — and . . . 

Guib. To the Prince ! 

Gauc. (aside). And come what will to the 
lion's foot, I pay you, 85 

My cat's-paw, as I long have yearned to pay. 

81 A mimic . . . like. A, A mimic of the joint, and just so 
like. 



J 48 €olomhfsi llBirtltHiai? [act iv. 

(^Jloud.) Footsteps! Himself! 'T is Valence 

breaks on us, 
Exulting that their scheme succeeds. We '11 

hence — 
And perfect ours ! Consult the archives, first — 
Then, fortified with knowledge, seek the Hall ! 90 
Clugnet (to Gaucelme as they retire). You have 

not smiled so since your father died ! 
As they retire^ enter Valence with papers. 
Valence. So must it be ! I have examined 

these 
With scarce a palpitating heart — so calm. 
Keeping her image almost wholly off. 
Setting upon myself determined watch, 95 

Repelling to the uttermost his claims : 
And the result is — all men would pronounce 
And not I, only, the result to be — 
Berthold is heir ; she has no shade of right 
To the distinction which divided us, 100 

But, suffered to rule first, I know not why. 
Her rule connived at by those Kings and Popes, 
To serve some devil's-purpose, — now 't is 

gained, 

88-90 Exulting . . . Hall. A reads : 

Waits her to boast their scheme succeeds ! — We '11 hence — 
And perfect ours ! To the Archives and the Hall ! 

101-104 But^ suffered . , . ivell. A reads : 
But, suffered rule first by these Kings and Popes 
To serve some devirs-purpose, — now 't is gained, 
To serve some devii's-purpose must withdraw. 



Scene I.] ColOttlbe'g HBttt^tiai? 149 

Whate'er it was, the rule expires as well. 

— Valence, this rapture . . . selfish can it be ? 105 
Eject it from your heart, her home ! — It stays ! 
Ah, the brave world that opens on us both ! 

— Do my poor townsmen so esteem it ? 

Cleves, — 
I need not your pale faces ! This, reward 
For service done to you ? Too horrible ! no 

I never served you : 't was myself I served — 
Nay, served not — rather saved from punish- 
ment 
Which, had I failed you then, would plague me 

now. 
My life continues yours, and your life, mine. 
But if, to take God's gift, I swerve no step — 115 
Cleves ! If I breathe no prayer for it — if she. 

Footsteps without, 
Colombe, that comes now, freely gives herself — 
Will Cleves require, that, turning thus to her, 
I.., 

Enter Prince Berthold. 
Pardon, sir ! I did not look for you 
Till night, i' the Hall; nor have as yet declared 120 
My judgment to the lady. 

Berthold, So I hoped. 

107 on us. A, to us. no, in you. A, them. 
116 If I breathe no prayer. A, If no prayer I breathe. 
119 / did not look. A, I had not looked. 



150 Colombr'g llBtrtl^lia^ [act iv. 

VaL And yet I scarcely know why that 
should check 
The frank disclosure of it first to you — 
What her right seems, and what, in consequence, 
She will decide on. 

Berth. That I need not ask. 125 

VaL You need not : I have proved the lady's 
mind: 
And, justice being to do, dare act for her. 

Berth. Doubtless she has a very noble mind. 

VaL Oh, never fear but she '11 in each con- 
juncture 

Bear herself bravely ! She no whit depends 130 
On circumstance ; as she adorns a throne, 
She had adorned . . . 

Berth. A cottage — in what book 

Have I read that, of every queen that lived ? 
A throne ! You have not been instructed, sure, 
To forestall my request ? 

VaL 'T is granted, sir ! 135 

My heart instructs me. I have scrutinized 
Your claims . . . 

Berth. Ah — claims, you mean, at first pre- 
ferred ? 



122-125 And yet . . . decide on. A reads : 

And yet I scarce know wherefore that prevents 
Disclosing it to you — disclosing even 
What she determines — 

132 A cottage. A, A hovel. 137 at fir a. A, I first. 



Scene I. ] €o\Ombf& Mtt\)t>^^ 1 5 1 

I come, before the hour appointed me, 

To pray you let those claims at present rest, 

In favour of a new and stronger one. 140 

FaL You shall not need a stronger : on the 
part 
O' the lady, all you offer I accept. 
Since one clear right suffices : yours is clear. 
Propose ! 

Berth. I offer her my hand. 

FaL Your hand ? 

Berth, A Duke's, yourself say ; and, at no 
far time, 145 

Something here whispers me — an Emperor's. 
The lady's mind is noble : which induced 
This seizure of occasion ere my claims 
Were — settled, let us amicably say ! 

FaL Your hand ! 

Berth. (He will fall down and kiss it 

next !) 150 

Sir, this astonishment 's too flattering. 
Nor must you hold your mistress' worth so cheap. 
Enhance it, rather, — urge that blood is blood — 
The daughter of the Burgraves, Landgraves, 

Markgraves, 
Remains their daughter ! I shall scarce gainsay. 155 
Elsewhere or here, the lady needs must rule : 

138 I come . . . me. A, Before our late appointment, sir, I come. 
142 0' the lady. A, Of the lady. 



152 Colombo's llBtrtl^Da^ [act iv. 

Like the imperial crown's great chrysoprase, 
They talk of — somewhat out of keeping there, 
And yet no jewel for a meaner cap. 

Val . You wed the Duchess ? 

Berth. Cry you mercy, friend ! i6o 

Will the match also influence fortunes here ? 
A natural solicitude enough. 
Be certain, no bad chance it proves for you ! 
However high you take your present stand. 
There's prospect of a higher still remove — 165 
For Juliers will not be my resting-place. 
And, when I have to choose a substitute 
To rule the little burgh, I '11 think of you 
Who need not give your mates a character. 
And yet I doubt your fitness to supplant 170 

The gray smooth Chamberlain : he 'd hesitate 
A doubt his lady could demean herself 
So low as to accept me. Courage, sir ! 
I like your method better : feeling's play 
Is franker much, and flatters me beside. ^75 

VaL I am to say, you love her ? 

Berth. Say that too ! 

Love has no great concernment, thinks the 

world. 
With a Duke's marriage. How go precedents 

158 talk of. A, tell me. i6i Will . . . here. A, The match 
will influence many fortunes here? 162 A natural solicitude 
enough. A, A natural enough solicitude. 168 Not in first edition. 
169 Who. A, You. I J I gray. A, grew j a palpable misprint. 



Scene I. ] €olomhf6 llBtrtl^tia^ 1 5 3 

In Juliers' story- — how use Juliers' Dukes? 

I see you have them here in goodly row; i8o 

Yon must be Luitpold — ay, a stalwart sire ! 

Say, I have been arrested suddenly 

In my ambition's course, its rocky course, 

By this sweet flower: I fain would gather it 

And then proceed: so say and speedily 185 

— (Nor stand there like Duke Luitpold's brazen 

self!) 
Enough, sir : you possess my mind, I think. 
This is my claim, the others being withdrawn, 
And to this be it that, i' the Hall to-night. 
Your lady's answer comes 5 till when, farewell ! 190 

He retires, 
VaL {after a pause^. The heavens and earth 

stay as they were ; my heart 
Beats as it beat : the truth remains the truth. 
What falls away, then, if not faith in her ? 
Was it my faith, that she could estimate 
Love's value, and, such faith still guiding me, 195 
Dare I now test her ? Or grew faith so strong 
Solely because no power of test was mine ? 

180 Not in first edition. 

183 course^ its rocky. A, course ... say rocky. 

188 Not in first edition. 

189 And to . . . to-night. A, To this claim, be it in the 
Hall at night. 

193 then, if not faith in her f A, if not my faith in her? 
196 Dare I . . . strong. A, Dare I to test her now, — or 
had I faith 



154 Colombe'0 llBirtljtia^ [act iv. 

Enter the Duchess. 
The Duchess. My fate, sir ! Ah, you turn 
away. All 's over. 
But you are sorry for me ? Be not so ! 
What I might have become, and never was, ^oo 
Regret with me ! What I have merely been. 
Rejoice I am no longer ! What I seem 
Beginning now, in my new state, to be, 
Hope that I am ! — for, once my rights proved 

void. 
This heavy roof seems easy to exchange 205 

For the blue sky outside — my lot henceforth. 
Val And what a lot is Berthold's ! 
Duch. How of him ? 

Val, He gathers earth's whole good into his 
arms ; 
Standing, as man now, stately, strong and wise, 
Marching to fortune, not surprised by her. 210 

One great aim, like a guiding-star, above — 
Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift 
His manhood to the height that takes the prize ; 

202-204 TFhat I seem . . . 'void. A reads : 

What I now 
Begin, a simple woman now, to be, 
Hope that 1 am, for, now my rights are void. 

208-223 He gathers . . . star. A reads : 

He stands, a man, now; stately, strong and wise — 
One great aim, like a guiding star, before — 
Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness to follow. 
As not its substance, but its shine he tracks. 
Nor dreams of more than, just evolving these 
To fulness, will suffice him to life's end. 
After this star, etc. 



Scene I.] Colottibe's llBirtl^Da^ 1 55 

A prize not near — lest overlooking earth 

He rashly spring to seize it — nor remote, 215 

So that he rest upon his path content : 

But day by day, while shimmering grows shine. 

And the faint circlet prophesies the orb. 

He sees so much as, just evolving these. 

The stateliness, the wisdom and the strength, 220 

To due completion, will suffice this life. 

And lead him at his grandest to the grave. 

After this star, out of a night he springs ; 

A beggar's cradle for the throne of thrones 

He quits ; so, mounting, feels each step he 

mounts, 225 

Nor, as from each to each exultingly 
He passes, overleaps one grade of joy. 
This, for his own good : — with the world, each 

gift 
Of God and man, — reality, tradition. 
Fancy and fact — so well environ him, 230 

That as a mystic panoply they serve — 
Of force, untenanted, to awe mankind. 
And work his purpose out with half the world. 
While he, their master, dexterously slipt 
From such encumbrance, is meantime employed 235 
With his own prowess on the other half. 
Thus shall he prosper, every day's success 
Adding, to what is he, a solid strength — 

236 on the other. A, with the other. 

237 Thui shall he prosper. A, So shall he go on. 



156 Colombrs llBirtl^iia? [act iv. 

An aery might to what encircles him, 

Till at the last, so life's routine lends help, 240 

That as the Emperor only breathes and moves. 

His shadow shall be watched, his step or stalk 

Become a comfort or a portent, how 

He trails his ermine take significance, — 

Till even his power shall cease to be most power, 245 

And men shall dread his weakness more, nor 

dare 
Peril their earth its bravest, first and best. 
Its typified invincibility. 

Thus shall he go on, greatening, till he ends — 
The man of men, the spirit of all flesh, 250 

The fiery centre of an earthly world ! 

Duch. Some such a fortune I had dreamed 
should rise 
Out of my own — that is, above my power 
Seemed other, greater potencies to stretch — 

VaL For you ? 

Duch. It was not I moved there, I think : 255 
But one I could, — though constantly beside. 
And aye approaching, — still keep distant from, 
And so adore. 'T was a man moved there. 

239 airy. A, airy. 240 lends help. A, shall grow. 

245—249 Till even . . . he ends. A reads : 

Till even his power shall cease his power to be. 
And most his weakness men shall fear, nor vanquish 
Their typified invincibility. 
So shall he go on, so at last shall end. 

251 earthly. A, earthy. 

258 ^T 'Was a man. A, A man 'twas. 



Scene I.] ColOttlbe'^ Btttl^tia^ 157 

Val. Who ? 

Duch. I felt the spirit, never saw the face. 

Val. See it ! 'T is Berthold's ! He enables 
you ^^° 

To realize your vision. 

Duch. Berthold ? 

Val. Duke — 

Emperor to be : he proffers you his hand. 

Duch. Generous and princely ! 

Val. He is all of this. 

Duch, Thanks, Berthold, for my father's 
sake ! No hand 
Degrades me. 

Val. You accept the proffered hand ? 265 

Duch. That he should love me ! 

Val. " Loved " I did not say. 

Had that been — love might so incline the Prince 
To the world's good, the world that 's at his 

foot, — 
I do not know, this moment, I should dare 
Desire that you refused the world — and 

Cleves — 270 

The sacrifice he asks. 

Duch. Not love me, sir ? 

Val. He scarce affirmed it. 

Duch. May not deeds affirm ? 

267 lo-ve might so. A, so might love. 

270 Desire that you refused. A, Give counsel you refuse. 

272 deeds affirm. A, deeds say more. 



158 Colombe'g llBirtl^tia^ [act iv. 

Val. What does he ? . . . Yes, yes, very much 

he does ! 
All the shame saved, he thinks, and sorrow 

saved — 
Immitigable sorrow, so he thinks, — 275 

Sorrow that 's deeper than we dream, perchance. 
Duch. Is not this love ? 

Val. So very much he does ! 

For look, you can descend now gracefully : 
All doubts are banished, that the world might 

have. 
Or worst, the doubts yourself, in after-time, 280 
May call up of your heart's sincereness now. 
To such, reply, " I could have kept my rule — 
'' Increased it to the utmost of my dreams — 
" Yet I abjured it." This, he does for you : 
It is munificently much. 

Duch. Still " much " ! 285 

But why is it not love, sir ? Answer me ! 

Val. Because not one of Berthold's words and 

looks 
Had gone with love's presentment of a flower 
To the beloved : because bold confidence. 
Open superiority, free pride — 290 

Love owns not, yet were all that Berthold 

owned : 

282 I could ha've kept my rule. A, My rule I could have kept. 
284 Tet I . . .you. A, Yet abjured all. This, Berthold does 
for you. 291 yet. A, and. 



Scene I.] €olomhf6 llBtrtl^Da^ 159 

Because where reason, even, finds no flaw, 
Unerringly a lover's instinct may. 

Duch, You reason, then, and doubt ? 

Fal. I love, and know. 

Duch. You love ? How strange ! I never 
cast a thought 295 

On that. Just see our selfishness ! You seemed 
So much my own ... I had no ground — and 

yet, 

I never dreamed another might divide 
My power with you, much less exceed it. 

VaL Lady, 

I am yours wholly. 

Duch, Oh, no, no, not mine ! 300 

'T is not the same now, never more can be. 
— Your first love, doubtless. Well, what 's 

gone from me ? 
What have I lost in you ? 

VaL My heart replies — 

No loss there ! So, to Berthold back again : 
This ofFer of his hand, he bids me make — 305 
Its obvious magnitude is well to weigh. 

Duch, She 's . . . yes, she must be very fair 
for you ! 

VaL I am a simple advocate of Cleves. 

Duch. You ! With the heart and brain that 
so helped me, 

304 iSo, to Berthold back again. A, So of Berthold's proposition. 



1 60 €olomhf& UBitt^U^ [act iv. 

I fancied them exclusively my own, 310 

Yet find are subject to a stronger sway ! 
She must be . . . tell me, is she very fair ? 
FaL Most fair, beyond conception or belief. 
Duch, Black eyes ? — no matter ! Colombe, 
the world leads 
Its life without you, whom your friends professed 3^5 
The only woman : see how true they spoke ! 
One lived this while, who never saw your face. 
Nor heard your voice — unless ... Is she from 
Cleves ? 
Val. Cleves knows her well. 
Duch. Ah — just a fancy, now ! 

When you poured forth the wrongs of Cleves, 

— I said, 320 

— Thought, that is, afterward . . . 

Val, You thought of me ? 

Duch, Of whom else ? Only such great 
cause, I thought. 
For such effect : see what true love can do ! 
Cleves is his love. I almost fear to ask 
. . . And will not. This is idling : to our 

work ! 3^5 

Admit before the Prince, without reserve. 
My claims misgrounded ; then may follow better 

310 them. A, both. 

316 only. A, single, spoke. A, were. 

322 great cause. A, a cause. 

325 And ivill not. A, Nor will not 



Scene I.] ColOttlbe'S UBirtJ^Da^ 1 6 1 

. . When you poured out Cleves' wrongs 
impetuously, 
Was she in your mind ? 

Val, All done was done for her 

— To humble me ! 

Duch, She will be proud at least. 330 

Val. She? 

Duch. When you tell her. 

VaL That will never be. 

Duch. How — are there sweeter things you 
hope to tell ? 
No, sir ! You counselled me, — I counsel you 
In the one point I — any woman — can. 
Your worth, the first thing ; let her own come 

next — 335 

Say what you did through her, and she through 

you — 
The praises of her beauty afterward ! 
Will you? .^ 

VaL I dare not. 

Duch. Dare not ? 

VaL She I love 

Suspects not such a love in me. 

Duch. You jest. 

VaL The lady is above me and away. 34c 

Not only the brave form, and the bright mind. 
And the great heart, combine to press me low — 
But all the world calls rank divides us. 



i62 Colombe'0 115irtt)Dap [act iv. 

Duch. Rank ! 

Now grant me patience ! Here 's a man declares 
Oracularly in another's case — 345 

Sees the true value and the false, for them — 
Nay, bids them see it, and they straight do see. 
You called my court's love worthless — so it 

turned : 
I threw away as dross my heap of wealth, 
And here you stickle for a piece or two ! 350 

First — has she seen you ? 

Fal. Yes. 

Duch. She loves you, then. 

VaL One flash of hope burst \ then succeeded 
night : 
And all 's at darkest now. Impossible ! 

Duch. We '11 try : you are — so to speak — 
my subject yet ? 

VaL As ever — to the death. 

Duch. Obey me, then ! 355 

Val. I must. 

Duch. Approach her, and ... no ! first 

of all 
Get more assurance. " My instructress," say, 
" Was great, descended from a line of kings, 
" And even fair " — (wait why I say this folly) — 
'' She said, of all men, none for eloquence, z^o 

" Courage, and (what cast even these to shade) 

354 so to speak. A, somehow. 



Scene L] ColOtttbe'g Btltl^tia^ 1 63 

" The heart they sprung from, — none deserved 

like him 
" Who saved her at her need : if she said this, 
" What should not one I love, say ? " 

VaL Heaven — this hope — 

Oh, lady, you are filling me with fire ! 365 

Duch, Say this ! — nor think I bid you cast 
aside 
One touch of all the awe and reverence ; 
Nay, make her proud for once to heart's content 
That all this wealth of heart and soul 's her own ! 
Think you are all of this, — and, thinking it, 370 
. . . (Obey!) 

VaL I cannot choose. 

Duch, Then, kneel to her ! 

Valence sinks on his knee. 
I dream! 

VaL Have mercy ! yours, unto the death, — 
I have obeyed. Despise, and let me die ! 

Duch. Alas, sir, is it to be ever thus ? 
Even with you as with the world ? I know 375 
This morning's service was no vulgar deed 
Whose motive, once it dares avow itself. 
Explains all done and infinitely more, 
So, takes the shelter of a nobler cause. 

367 the aive. A, that awe. 

379) 3^^ a nobler cause . . . Tour service. A reads : 
a meaner cause, 

Whence rising, its effects may amply show. 

Your service, etc 



1 64 Colombe'g llBirttitia^ [ act iv. 

Your service named its true source, — loyalty! 380 
The rest 's unsaid again. The Duchess bids you, 
Rise, sir ! The Prince's words were in debate. 
VaL {rising). Rise ? Truth, as ever, lady, 

comes from you ! 
I should rise — I who spoke for Cleves, can 

speak 
For Man — yet tremble now, who stood firm 

then. 385 

I laughed — for 't was past tears — that Cleves 

should starve 
With all hearts beating loud the infamy. 
And no tongue daring trust as much to air : 
Yet here, where all hearts speak, shall I be mute ? 
Oh, lady, for your own sake look on me ! 39*^ 

On all I am, and have, and do — heart, brain, 
Body and soul, — this Valence and his gifts ! 
I was proud once : I saw you, and they sank, 
So that each, magnified a thousand times. 
Were nothing to you — but such nothingness, 395 
Would a crown gild it, or a sceptre prop, 
A treasure speed, a laurel-wreath enhance ? 
What is my own desert ? But should your love 
Have . . . there 's no language helps here . . . 

singled me, — 
Then — oh, that wild word " then ! " — be just 

to love, 400 

384, 385 ivho. A, that. 

396 Would a croivn gild it. A, What would a crown gild. 



Scene I. ] ColOttlbe^g Biltl^fia^ 1 65 

In generosity its attribute ! 

Love, since you pleased to love ! All 's cleared 

— a stage 
For trial of the question kept so long : 
Judge you — Is love or vanity the best ? 
You, solve it for the world's sake — you, speak 

first 405 

What all will shout one day — you, vindicate 
Our earth and be its angel ! All is said. 
Lady, I ofFer nothing — I am yours : 
But, for the cause' sake, look on me and him, 
And speak ! 

Duch, I have received the Prince's message: 410 
Say, I prepare my answer ! 

VaL Take me, Cleves ! {He withdraws^ 
Duch, Mournful — that nothing 's what it 

calls itself! 
Devotion, zeal, faith, loyalty — mere love ! 
And, love in question, what may Berthold's be ? 
I did ill to mistrust the world so soon : 415 

Already was this Berthold at my side. 
The valley-level has its hawks no doubt : 
May not the rock-top have its eagles, too ? 
Yet Valence ... let me see his rival then ! 

402 Lo've since . . . stage. A, Love, as you pleased to love ! 
All is cleared — a stage. 

403 A has no pause at end of line. 

403-404 so long : yudge you. A, so long For you. 
405 speak. A, say. 



ACT V. 

NIGHT. 

Scene. — The Hall. 
Enter Berthold and Melchior. 

Melchior. And here you wait the matter's 
issue ? 

Berthold. Here. 

Melch. I don't regret I shut Amelius, then. 
But tell nie, on this grand disclosure, — how 
Behaved our spokesman with the forehead ? 

Berth. Oh, 

Turned out no better than the foreheadless — 5 
Was dazzled not so very soon, that 's all ! 
For my part, this is scarce the hasty showy 
Chivalrous measure you give me credit of. 
Perhaps I had a fancy, — but 't is gone. 

— Let her commence the unfriended innocent 10 
And carry wrongs about from court to court ? 
No, truly ! The least shake of fortune's sand, 

— My uncle-Pope chokes in a coughing fit, 
King-cousin takes a fancy to blue eyes, — 

And wondrously her claims would brighten up; 15 

4 Oh ! A, Oh, — he. 9 Not in first edition. 
10 the unfriended. A, unfriended. 

13 My uncle-Pope . . , Jit. A, My uncle chokes in his next 
coughing-fit. 14 King-cousin. A, King Philip. 



Scene I.] €olOmhf& MVti)Ul^ 167 

Forth comes a new gloss on the ancient law, 
O'er-looked provisoes, o'er-past premises, 
Follow in plenty. No : ^t is the safe step. 
The hour beneath the convent-wall is lost : 
Juliers and she, once mine, are ever mine. 20 

Melch, Which is to say, you, losing heart 
already. 
Elude the adventure. 

Berth, Not so — or, if so — 

Why not confess at once that I advise 
None of our kingly craft and guild just now 
To lay, one moment, down their privilege 25 

With the notion they can any time at pleasure 
Retake it : that may turn out hazardous. 
We seem, in Europe, pretty well at end 
O' the night, with our great masque : those 

favoured few 
Who keep the chamber's top, and honour's chance 30 
Of the early evening, may retain their place 
And figure as they list till out of breath. 
But it is growing late : and I observe 
A dim grim kind of tipstaves at the doorway 
Not only bar new-comers entering now, 35 

But caution those who left, for any cause. 
And would return, that morning draws too near ; 
The ball must die off, shut itself up. We — 

17 o^r-past. A, past o'er. 18 safe. A, safer. 
19 Not in first edition. 



1 68 Colombrs HBtrtljDa^ [act v. 

I think, may dance lights out and sunshine in, 

And sleep off headache on our frippery: 40 

But friend the other, who cunningly stole out. 

And, after breathing the fresh air outside. 

Means to re-enter with a new costume. 

Will be advised go back to bed, I fear. 

I stick to privilege, on second thoughts. 45 

Melch, Yes — you evade the adventure : and, 
beside. 
Give yourself out for colder than you are. 
King Philip, only, notes the lady's eyes ? 
Don't they come in for somewhat of the motive 
With you too ? 

Berth. Yes — no : I am past that now. 50 

Gone 't is : I cannot shut my soul to fact. 
Of ^course, I might by forethought and con- 
trivance 
Reason myself into a rapture. Gone : 
And something better come instead, no doubt. 

Melch. So be it ! Yet, all the same, proceed 
my way, 55 

Though to your ends ; so shall you prosper best ! 
The lady, — to be won for selfish ends, — 
Will be won easier my unselfish . . . call it, 
Romantic way. 

42 Not in first edition. 43 Means to. A, And thinks, neiv, 
A, fresh. ^<) for someivhat. A, somewhat. 51 soul. A, eyes. 
K,^ better. A, better's. 55 Yet ^ all . . . ivay. A, Yet, proceed 
my way, the same. 56 ends. A, end. 



scEN£ I. ] Colombe'tf llBirt^tta^ 1 69 

Berth. Won easier ? 

Melch. Will not she ? 

Berth, There I profess humility without 
bound : 60 

111 cannot speed — not I — the Emperor. 

Melch. And I should think the Emperor best 
waived, 
From your description of her mood and way. 
You could look, if it pleased you, into hearts ; 
But are too indolent and fond of watching 65 

Your own — you know that, for you study it. 

Berth. Had you but seen the orator her friend, 
So bold and voluble an hour before. 
Abashed to earth at aspect of the change ! 
Make her an Empress ? Ah, that changed the 

case ! 70 

Oh, I read hearts ! 'T is for my own behoof, 
I court her with my true worth : wait the event ! 
I learned my final lesson on that head 
When years ago, — my first and last essay — 
Before the priest my uncle could by help 75 

Of his superior, raise me from the dirt — 
Priscilla left me for a Brabant lord 
Whose cheek was like the topaz on his thumb. 
I am past illusion on that score. 

68, 70 Not in first edition. 71 ^T is. A, And. 72 wait. 
A, see. 75 Before . . . /lelp. A, Before my uncle could obtain 
the ear. 76 raise me. A, help me. 77 lord. A, Duke. 



1 70 €olomhf& llBirtljtia^ [act v. 

Melch, Here comes 

The lady — 

Berth. — - And there you go. But do not ! 
Give me 
Another chance to please you ! Hear me plead ! 
Melch, You '11 keep, then, to the lover, to the 
man ? 

Enter the Duchess — followed by Adolf and Sabyne 
and^ after an interval^ by the Courtiers. 
Berth. Good auspice to our meeting ! 
The Duchess. May it prove ! 

— And you, sir, will be Emperor one day ? 
Berth. (Ay, that 's the point !) I may be 

Emperor. 
Duch. 'T is not for my sake only, I am 
proud 
Of this you offer : I am prouder far 
That from the highest state should duly spring 
The highest, since most generous, of deeds. 
Berth. (Generous — still that !) You under- 
rate yourself. 
You are, what I, to be complete, must gain — 
Find now, and may not find, another time. 
While I career on all the world for stage, 
There needs at home my representative. 

Duch. — Such, rather, would some warrior- 
woman be — 

82 lo'ver. A, gallant. 



Scene I] Colombe'0 IBtrtljiJas 1 7 1 

One dowered with lands and gold, or rich in 

friends — 
One like yourself. 

Berth. Lady, I am myself, 

And have all these : I want what 's not myself, 
Nor has all these. Why give one hand two 

swords ? 
Here 's one already : be a friend's next gift loo 
A silk glove, if you will — I have a sword. 

Duch, You love me, then ? 

Berth, Your lineage I revere, 

Honour your virtue, in your truth believe. 
Do homage to your intellect, and bow 
Before your peerless beauty. 

Duch. But, for love — 105 

Berth. A further love I do not understand. 
Our best course is to say these hideous truths. 
And see them, once said, grow endurable : 
Like waters shuddering from their central bed. 
Black with the midnight bowels of the earth, no 
That, once up-spouted by an earthquake's throe, 
A portent and a terror — soon subside. 
Freshen apace, take gold and rainbow hues 
In sunshine, sleep in shadow, and at last 
Grow common to the earth as hills or trees — 115 
Accepted by all things they came to scare. 

104 to your intellect. A, to intelligence. 105 your peerless. 
A, a peerless. 114 In sunshine . . . last. A, Under the sun 
and in the air, — at last. 



172 Colombe'g )15trtl)tia^ [act v. 

Duch. You cannot love, then ? 

Berth. Charlemagne, perhaps ! 

Are you not over-curious in love-lore ? 

Duch. I have become so, very recently. 
It seems, then, I shall best deserve esteem, no 
Respect, and all your candour promises. 
By putting on a calculating mood — 
Asking the terms of my becoming yours ? 

Berth. Let me not do myself injustice, neither. 
Because I will not condescend to fictions 125 

That promise what my soul can ne'er acquit, 
It does not follow that my guarded phrase 
May not include far more of what you seek 
Than wide profession of less scrupulous men. 
You will be Empress, once for all : with me 130 
The Pope disputes supremacy — you stand. 
And none gainsays, the earth's first woman. 

Duch. That — 

Or simple Lady of Ravestein again ? 

Berth. The matter 's not in my arbitrament : 
Now I have made my claims — which I regret — 135 
Cede one, cede all. 

Duch. This claim then, you enforce ? 

Berth. The world looks on. 

Duch. And when must I decide ? 

Berth. When, lady ? Have I said thus much 
so promptly 

129 profession. A, professions. 
138 so promptly. A, at first. 



Scene L] HolOVftWe llBittl^tia^ 1 73 

For nothing ? — Poured out, with such pains, at 

once 
What I might else have suffered to ooze forth 140 
Droplet by droplet in a lifetime long — 
For aught less than as prompt an answer, too ? 
All 's fairly told now : who can teach you more ? 
Duch, I do not see him. 
Berth. I shall ne'er deceive. 

This offer should be made befittingly 145 

Did time allow the better setting forth 
The good of it, with what is not so good, 
Advantage, and disparagement as well : 
But as it is, the sum of both must serve. 
I am already weary of this place; 15° 

My thoughts are next stage on to Rome. De- 
cide ! 
The Empire — or, — not even Juliers now ! 
Hail to the Empress — farewell to the Duchess ! 
The Courtiers^ who have been drawing 
nearer and nearer^ interpose, 
Gaucelme. — " Farewell," Prince ? when we 

break in at our risk — 
Clugnet. Almost upon court-license trespass- 
ing — 15s 

145 should be made befittingly. A, had been made more leisurely. 

146 Did. A, Would. /orM. A, off. 147 Not in first edition. 
1 51-15 3 Decide ! . . . the Duchess I A reads : 

Now either 
Hail to the Empress — farewell to the Lady. 

154 Gaucelme. A, Courtiers. 



1 74 Colombe's llBirtl^Oa^ [act v. 

Gauc» — To point out how your claims are 

valid yet ! 
You know not, by the Duke her father's will, 
The lady, if she weds beneath her rank. 
Forfeits her Duchy in the next heir's favour — 
So 't is expressly stipulate. And if i6o 

It can be shown 't is her intent to wed 
A subject, then yourself, next heir, by right 
Succeed to Juliers. 

Berth. What insanity ? — 

Guibert. Sir, there 's one Valence, the pale 

fiery man 
You saw and heard this morning — thought, no 

doubt, 165 

Was of considerable standing here : 
I put it to your penetration. Prince, 
If aught save love, the truest love for her 
Could make him serve the lady as he did ! 
He 's simply a poor advocate of Cleves 170 

— Creeps here with difficulty, finds a place 
With danger, gets in by a miracle. 
And for the first time meets the lady's face — 
So runs the story : is that credible ? 
For, first — no sooner in, than he's apprised 17S 



156 Gauc. A, Courtiers. 162, 163 A subject , . . insanity! A reads: 

A subject then yo 
Berth. 

169 Could make. A, Had made. 



A subject then yourself . . . 
Berth. What insolence ! 



Scene L] ColOtttbe'g HBtttl^lJaB 1 75 

Fortunes have changed ; you are all-powerful 

here, 
The lady as powerless : he stands fast by her ! 
Duch, {aside). And do such deeds spring up 

from love alone ? 
Guib, But here occurs the question, does the 
lady 
Love him again ? I say, how else can she ? i8o 
Can she forget how he stood singly forth 
In her defence, dared outrage all of us. 
Insult yourself — for what, save love's reward ? 
Duch. {aside). And is love then the sole 

reward of love ? 
Guib. But, love him as she may and must — 
you ask, 185 

Means she to wed him ? " Yes," both natures 

answer ! 
Both, in their pride, point out the sole result ; 
Nought less would he accept nor she propose. 
For each conjuncture was she great enough 
— Will be, for this. 

Clugn. Though, now that this is known, 190 

Policy, doubtless, urges she deny . . . 

Duch. — What, sir, and wherefore ? — since 
I am not sure 
That all is any other than you say ! 
You take this Valence, hold him close to me. 
Him with his actions : can I choose but look? 195 

195 actions. A, action. 



1 76 Colombo's llBtrtl^aa^ [act v. 

I am not sure, love trulier shows itself 

Than in this man, you hate and would degrade, 

Yet, with your worst abatement, show me thus. 

Nor am I — (thus made look within myself. 

Ere I had dared) — now that the look is dared — 200 

Sure that I do not love him ! 

Guih, Hear you, Prince ? 

Berth, And what, sirs, please yqu, may this 
prattle mean 
Unless to prove with what alacrity 
You give your lady's secrets to the world ? 
How much indebted, for discovering 205 

That quality, you make me, will be found 
When there 's a keeper for my own to seek. 

Courtiers. " Our lady ? " 

Berth. — She assuredly remains. 

Duch. Ah, Prince — and you too can be 
generous ? 
You could renounce your power, if this were so, 210 
And let me, as these phrase it, wed my love 
Yet keep my Duchy ? You perhaps exceed 
Him, even, in disinterestedness ! 

Berth. How, lady, should all this affect my 
purpose ? 
Your will and choice are still as ever, free, 215 

205 Hoiv much. A, But how. 

207 When there ^s . . . seek. A, When next a keeper for my 
own 's to seek. 211 phrase it. A, argue. 212 Tet. A, And. 



Scene I.] Colottibe'S llBtrtl^fia^ 177 

Say, you have known a worthier than myself 
In mind and heart, of happier form and face — 
Others must have their birthright : I have gifts, 
To balance theirs, not blot them out of sight. 
Against a hundred alien qualities, 220 

I lay the prize I offer. I am nothing : 
Wed you the Empire ? 

Duch, And my heart away ? 

Berth. When have I made pretension to your 
heart ? 
I give none. I shall keep your honour safe ; 
With mine I trust you, as the sculptor trusts 225 
Yon marble woman with the marble rose, 
Loose on her hand, she never will let fall, 
In graceful, slight, silent security. 
You will be proud of my world-wide career, 
And I content in you the fair and good. ^30 

What were the use of planting a few seeds 
The thankless climate never would mature — 
Affections all repelled by circumstance ? 
Enough : to these no credit I attach, — 
To what you own, find nothing to object. ^35 

Write simply on my requisition's face 
What shall content my friends — that you admit. 
As Colombe of Ravestein, the claims therein. 
Or never need admit them, as my wife — 
And either way, all 's ended ! 

220 alien. A. other. 



178 Colombe'g llBtrtl^lia^ [actv. 

Duch. Let all end ! 240 

Berth. The requisition ! 
Gulh. — Valence holds, of course ! 

Berth. Desire his presence ! Adolf goes out. 
Courtiers [to each other). Out it all comes 

yet; 
He '11 have his word against the bargain yet ; 
He 's not the man to tamely acquiesce. 
One passionate appeal — upbraiding even, 245 

May turn the tide again. Despair not yet ! 

They retire a little. 
Berth, {to Melchior). The Empire has its old 

success, my friend ! 
Melch. You Ve had your way : before the 
spokesman speaks, 
Let me, but this once, work a problem out. 
And evermore be dumb ! The Empire wins ? 250 
To better purpose have I read my books ! 
Enter Valence. 
Melch. {to the Courtiers). Apart, my masters ! 
{TTo Valence^ Sir, one word with you ! 
I am a poor dependent of the Prince's — 
Pitched on to speak, as of slight consequence. 
You are no higher, I find : in other words, 255" 
We two, as probably the wisest here. 
Need not hold diplomatic talk like fools. 

241 Valence holds, of course. Given in A to Courtiers. 

243 yet. A, still. 246 May. A, Might. 248 speaks. A, comes. 

251 ha've I read. A, I have read. 253 Princess. A, Prince. 



I 



Scene I] Colombc'0 Btrtl^fia^ 1 79 

Suppose I speak, divesting the plain fact 

Of all their tortuous phrases, fit for them ? 

Do you reply so, and what trouble saved ! 260 

The Prince, then — an embroiled strange heap 

of news 
This moment reaches him — if true or false, 
All dignity forbids he should inquire 
In person, or by worthier deputy ; 
Yet somehow must inquire, lest slander come : 265 
And so, 't is I am pitched on. You have heard 
His offer to your lady ? 

Valence, Yes. 

Melch. — Conceive 

Her joy thereat ? 

Val, I cannot. 

Melch. No one can. 

All draws to a conclusion, therefore. 

Val, (aside). So ! 

No after-judgment — no first thought revised — 270 
Her first and last decision ! — me, she leaves. 
Takes him ; a simple heart is flung aside. 
The ermine o'er a heartless breast embraced. 
Oh Heaven, this mockery has been played too 

oft! 
Once, to surprise the angels — twice, that fiends 275 
Recording, might be proud they chose not so — 

258 Suppose I speak. A, So, I shall speak. 
260 trouble. A, trouble 's. 276 Recording . . . so. A, Might 
record, hug themselves they chose not so. 



1 80 Colombe'S JlBirtljtia^ [act v. 

Thrice, many thousand times, to teach the world 
All men should pause, misdoubt their strength, 

since men 
Can have such chance yet fail so signally, 
— But ever, ever this farewell to Heaven, 280 

Welcome to earth — this taking death for life — 
This spurning love and kneeling to the world — 
Oh Heaven, it is too often and too old ! 

Melch. Well, on this point, what but an 
absurd rumour 
Arises — these, its source — its subject, you ! 285 
Your faith and loyalty misconstruing. 
They say, your service claims the lady's hand ! 
Of course, nor Prince nor lady can respond : 
Yet something must be said : for, were it true 
You made such claim, the Prince would . . . 

Val. Well, sir, — would ? 290 

Melch. — Not only probably withdraw his 
suit. 
But, very like, the lady might be forced 
Accept your own. Oh, there are reasons why ! 
But you '11 excuse at present all save one, — 
I think so. What we want is, your own wit- 
ness, 295 
For, or against — her good, or yours : decide ! 

279 Can ha've such. A, Could have the. 
287 They say, . . . hand. A, The lady's hand your service 
claims, they say. 
294 one. A, this. 



Scene I] Colottibe'g llBittl^iJa? l8l 

Val. {aside). Be it her good if she accounts 
it so ! 
(After a contest^ For what am I but hers, to 

choose as she ? 
Who knows how far, beside, the light from 

her 
May reach, and dwell with, what she looks 

upon ? 300 

Melch, {to the Prince). Now to him, you ! 

Berth, {to Valence). My friend acquaints 

you, sir. 
The noise runs . . . 

Val. — Prince, how fortunate are you. 

Wedding her as you will, in spite of noise. 
To show belief in love ! Let her but love you, 
All else you disregard ! What else can be ? 3^5 
You know how love is incompatible 
With falsehood — purifies, assimilates 
All other passions to itself. 

Melch. Ay, sir : 

But softly ! Where, in the object we select, 
Such love is, perchance, wanting ? 

Val. Then indeed, 310 

What is it you can take ? 

Melch. Nay, ask the world ! 

Youth, beauty, virtue, an illustrious name. 
An influence o'er mankind. 

303 noise. A, it. 313 mankind. A, the world. 



1 82 Colombrg llBirttiDa? [act v. 

VaL When man perceives . . . 

— Ah, I can only speak as for myself ! 
Duch, Speak for yourself ! 

VaL May I ? — no, I have spoken, 315 

And time 's gone by. Had I seen such an 
one. 

As I loved her — w^eighing thoroughly that 
word — 

So should my task be to evolve her love : 

If for myself ! — if for another — well. 

Berth. Heroic truly ! And your sole re- 
ward, — 32-0 

The secret pride in yielding up love's right ? 
VaL Who thought upon reward ? And yet 
how much 

Comes after — oh, what amplest recompense ! 

Is the knowledge of her, nought ? the memory, 
nought ? 

— Lady, should such an one have looked on 

you, 3^5 

Ne'er wrong yourself so far as quote the world 
And say, love can go unrequited here ! 
You will have blessed him to his whole life's 

end — 
Low passions hindered, baser cares kept back. 
All goodness cherished where you dwelt — and 

dwell. 330 

321 lo've^s right. A, your own. 



Scene I.] €olomhf fS 115trtl)J>a^ 183 

What would he have? He holds you — you, 

both form 
And mind, in his, — where self-love makes 

such room 
For love of you, he would not serve you now 
The vulgar way, — repulse your enemies. 
Win you new realms, or best, to save the old 335 
Die blissfully — that 's past so long ago ! 
He wishes you no need, thought, care of him — 
Your good, by any means, himself unseen. 
Away, forgotten ! — He gives that life's task up. 
As it were . . . but this charge which I return — 340 

Offers the requisition^ which she takes. 
Wishing your good. 

Duch. {having subscribed it). And oppor- 

tunely, sir — 
Since at a birthday's close, like this of mine. 
Good wishes gentle deeds reciprocate. 
Most on a wedding-day, as mine is too. 
Should gifts be thought of: yours comes first by 

right. 345 

Ask of me ! 

Berth. He shall have whate'er he asks, 
For your sake and his own. 

331-332 He holds . . . room. A reads : 

He has you — you, the form. 
And you, the mind, where self-love made such room, 

335 to sa've the old. A, in saving you. 

345 he thought of. A, go forward. 

347 For your sake and his own. A, For his sake and for yours. 



1 84 Colombe'0 llBirti^lia^ [ act v. 

VaL (aside). If I should ask — 

The withered bunch of flowers she wears — 

perhaps, 
One last touch of her hand, I nevermore 
Shall see ! After a pause^ presenting his paper to 
the Prince, 
Cleves' Prince, redress the wrongs of Cleves ! 350 
Berth, I will, sir ! 

Duch, (as Valence prepares to retire), — Nay, 
do out your duty, first ! 
You bore this paper ; I have registered 
My answer to it : read it and have done ] 

Valence reads it, 
I take him — give up Juliers and the world. 
This is my Birthday. 

Melch, Berthold, my one hero 355 

Of the world she gives up, one friend worth my 

books. 
Sole man I think it pays the pains to watch, — 
Speak, for I know you through your Popes and 
Kings ! 
Berth, (after a pause). Lady, well rewarded ! 
Sir, as well deserved ! 
I could not imitate — I hardly envy — 360 

I do admire you. All is for the best. I 

349-350 One last touch . . . Cleves. A reads : 

One last touch of . . . 

After a pause ^presenting his paper to the Prince. 
Redress the wrongs of Cleves ! 



i 



Scene L] €0l0mhf6 Witt\)UV 1 85 

Too costly a flower were this, I see it now, 

To pluck and set upon my barren helm 

To wither — any garish plume will do. 

I '11 not insult you and refuse your Duchy — 365 

You can so well afFord to yield it me, 

And I were left, without it, sadly lorn. 

As it is — for me — if that will flatter you, 

A somewhat wearier life seems to remain 

Than I thought possible where . . . 'faith, their 

life 370 

Begins already ! They 're too occupied 
To listen : and few words content me best. 
(^Abruptly to the Courtiers.^ I am your Duke, 

though ! Who obey me here ? 
Duch. Adolf and Sabyne follow us — 
Guib. {starting from the Courtiers), — And I? 
Do I not follow them, if I may n't you ? 375 

Shall not I get some little duties up 
At Ravestein and emulate the rest ? ^ 

God save you, Gaucelme ! 'T is my Birthday, 

too! 
Berth. You happy handful that remain with 

me 
. . . That is, with Dietrich the black Barnabite 380 
I shall leave over you — will earn your wages 
Or Dietrich has forgot to ply his trade ! 

362 ivere this. A, were you. 363 set. A, put. 

^ 365 Ducky. A, rule. 367 lorn. A, off. 



1 86 Colombe'g llBirtl^aa^ [act v. 

Meantime, — go copy me the precedents 

Of every installation, proper styles 

And pedigrees of all your Juliers' Dukes — 385 

While I prepare to plod on my old way. 

And somewhat wearily, I must confess ! 

Duch. {with a light joyous laugh as she turns 
from them). Come, Valence, to our 
friends, God's earth . , . 
VaL (as she /alls into his arms). — And thee ! 

386 plod. A, go. 



I^oteief to €oIom6e*jef ^ittt^ixap 

Colombe'*s Birthday was published in No. VI oi Bells and Pome- 
granates. It was written under the direct impulse given by the 
admiration expressed for A Blot in the ^Scutcheon. It was not put 
upon the stage until April 25, 1853, when Miss Helen Faucit 
produced it at the Haymarket Theatre, London. The Athenaum 
in its notice of the play said : 

" Its movements, for the most part, occur in the chambers of 
the mind. Such themes . . . will fail of attention to all who in- 
sist on the ordinary dramatic motion and action. To the worn-out 
and wearied playgoer, who can turn for a moment out of the beaten 
path, nothing could well be more delicious.*' 

The play was produced at the Howard Athenaeum, Boston, 
Feb. 16, 1854, with Miss Jean Davenport as Colombe. 

A performance was given at St. George's Hall, London, Nov. 
19, 1895, ^^der the auspices of the London Browning Society. 
Miss A. Mary F. Robinson (afterward Mdm. Darmesteter) wrote 
at that time : 

** Colombe^ s Birthday is charming on the boards, clearer, more 
direct in action, more picturesque, more full of delicate surprises 
than one imagines in print." 

85, 40. This to present. The first edition, to insure the 
correct emphasis, italicizes *this.' On the stage, the holding up 
of the missive before it is cast to the floor would bring out the 
point. 

86, 60. services ask recompense. The self-seeking 
heartlessness of Clugnet, who is willing to undertake the painful 
task if anything is to be gained by it, is in good dramatic contrast 
with the delicacy of Guibert and Maufroy. 

87* 70-73 • So . . . time. Vivid as is this picture of the rafts 
coming down the river Meuse in autumn, it has greater dramatic 
value because it so clearly brings out the contrast between Colombe 's 
condition as reigning Duchess and what may await her. 



1 88 iliotes 

87> 84. Salic law. This excluded females from sovereignty. 
87-88, 81-104. Where's there ... be carried.. 

This speech of Gaucelme's serves excellently as an exposition of 
the situation. It is less evidently in harmony with the character 
of the speaker. 

91, 163. pill and poll. An Elizabethan phrase signifying to 
strip. Both words are in this sense used in the King James Bible : 
Jacob pilled white stripes in his rods (Gen. xxx, 37) and men polled 
(cut off) their hair (Ezek. xliv, 20). 

94, 208-209. My horse . . . somebody. Gaucelme 
shows his character and temper by boasting that his horse bespat- 
tered the stranger and by declaring that the man looks like the 
devil. 

94, 220. Close ... on me. Adolph means to rush out to 
grapple with Valence, and wishes the door closed behind him. 

95> ^35- no listener for their wrongs. *'I having 
found here no one to hear and help. '* 

95-96, 243-245. Proud . . . wrongs. ** Glad to remem- 
ber your recklessness and levity, since this allows them to attribute 
your indifference to forgetfulness.'* 

1 01, 342. sursum corda. Guibert quotes this phrase from 
the mass — ** lift up your hearts " — in a cynical flout at himself 
for yielding to the suggestion to make a cat's-paw of Valence and 
perhaps at his feeling of relief at having escaped the disagreeable 
office himself. 

103,2. scarcely audience-hour. Sabyne, like Guibert, 
endeavors to postpone the audience which will show how few are 
assembled. 

107-108, 88-94. Well, Heaven^s gifts . . . she 

turns. This passage is confused, and very likely intentionally so, 
that it may indicate the confusion of Valence at sight of the Duchess. 
Apparently its meaning is : * The people caught my gaze, they being 
for the moment lifted to her level, and as they were hers, they 
must henceforward be mine for her sake ; but who can say that I 
could have made them mine fully had not her inspiration raised my 
soul before she left them — to my thinking — to my care.' This 
is of course a somewhat free paraphrase, but it seems to give the 
spirit of the passage. 



^ttS 189 

109, 122. insuppressive, a rare Elizabethan word. Al- 
though the scene is laid in the seventeenth century, Browning 
makes very little effort to give an archaic flavor by his diction. 

114, 207. A lion crests him. A lion is the crest of his 
coat-of-arms. 

114, 223. Would not . . . worst of me. In allusion 
to act i, 1. 363. Guibert defies Gaucelme, his enemy, to tell 
Berthold, when he comes, this protestation of devotion to the 
Duchess. 

Ii5> 237- A nameless . . . gentleman. The quickness 
with which the Duchess comes to the defense of Valence shows 
that he has already made a deep impression upon her 5 it is a touch 
of femininity that she is not able really to forgive Guibert. 

115, 240. Now . . . reckon with. This touch is ob- 
viously to impress the audience with the self-respect and dignity of 
Valence. 

118, 287-292. Either . . . form. It would appear that 
Guibert, Gaucelme, and Clugnet held the offices of Marshal, Chan- 
cellor, and Chamberlain, and surrender their badges at 1. 294 5 but 
in act iv, 1. 37, etc., another courtier speaks as Chancellor. 

n8, 302. Tho* . . . think. The audience is likely to 
agree with him. 

122, 4. Aix . . . Rome. Berthold's ambition and hope is 
to be Emperor of the so-called Roman Empire, and the cities named 
represent so many steps toward the realization of his desire. The 
Diet assembled at Frankfort-on-the-Main, there the emperor was 
elected, and there, or at Aix-la-Chapelle, he received the crown 
of Germany ; at Milan he was given the crown of Italy 5 at Rome, 
the crown of the whole Roman Empire. 

123, 27-28. the other a poor priest : but now Pope. 
The assumption on the part of the speaker of the knowledge which 
is in the mind of his companion but has not been told on the 
stage is likely to be confusing to the audience. 

123, 33. day-dream . . . not mine. It cannot have 

been much over a year since the death of the Duke, and apparently 
it was not until just before his death that the existence of the con- 
cealed heiress was known — at least to the courtiers. It is there- 
fore not evident how Berthold should have recognized her claim 



190 0Ott0 



when he ** was a boy,** although of course the words are not to 
be taken literally. As the time in which he has, apparently at 
least, known of her existence has been so short, his language has 
a good deal the air of a slip on the part of the poet. The only 
explanation would be that the existence of Colombe was known, 
but that her father had for some reason not apparent kept her in 
concealment. 

125, 66-67. yesterday . . . day before. The time 
is of course figurative. See 1. 133. 

126, 76-92. Ah, . . . talk and talk. **Our dramatic 
credulity is somewhat taxed in allowing [j/V] Berthold an argument 
and a soliloquy after the entrance of the courtiers before he makes 
the slightest sign of observing their presence." — Prof. Rolfe and 
Miss Hersey. It is possible that Browning deliberately introduced 
this effect to mark the contempt with which the Prince regards 
the courtiers. Whether the passage was so intended or not, it 
could certainly be effectively so treated on the stage. 

126,83-85. for . . . little aim. In this world, quantity 5 
in the world to come, quality. 

129,139-140. I tread . . . advocate! I come near to 
matching him in devotion to the cause of the Duchess. This, 
like 11. 113, 114, is of course an aside. 

130, 159-160. Were not . . . mind with. Admira- 
tion for the daring of Colombe brings to mind the suggestion that 
it might be well to make her his wife, and the thought of marriage 
in turn rouses the reflection that he is done with love in failing of 
Priscilla, and may now match for policy. 

132, 205. mine, you urge. What you say will be my 
thought. 

133, 210. Your frank indignation. The misunder- 
standing here is excellent from a dramatic point of view, although 
not handled with complete mastery of stagecraft. The hesitation 
of the Duchess from reluctance to face Berthold and to submit to 
the humiliation of giving up her power is believed by the Prince, 
who is misled by the declaration of Guibert, to be a measure of 
somewhat the same scorn he showed on the entrance of the cour- 
tiers. 

133, 222. Which . . . forgot. The relationship you ig- 
nored in assuming the crown. 



iliotetf 191 

I35> ^61. pillared flame was probably suggested by the 
"pillar of fire*' of Exod. xiii, 21, and Numb, xiv, 145 but the 
figure loses rather than gains by a recalling of the Biblical sign. 

I37> ^^5- And now . . . simple knight again. 
Out of the mood in which he apologized to Valence, Guibert is 
stung by the favor with which the Duchess treats her new servant 
and perhaps by the insinuations of the courtiers. 

138, 298. Do you SO ? This bit of misconception on the 
part of Clugnet, who supposes Guibert to have asked the influence 
of Valence to help him back to favor, is meant of course to emphasize 
the difference between Valence and the ex-Ghamberlain, but it is 
probably too subtle to be readily effective on the stage. 

143) !• this mine. Maufroy refers, of course, to the decla- 
ration of Gaucelme, iii, 317. 

146, 53. Selfish, friend. Gaucelme flatters to gain his end. 

147, 68. I wonder you see that. ** Gaucelme and 
Guibert are never willing to allow a virtue or a delicacy to each 
other. This line has a scornful emphasis on you.'*'* — Prof. Rolfe 
and Miss Hersey. 

I5I> 150- He . . . next! An aside, like 1. 186. 

152, 157- chrysoprase. Somew^hat out of place in the im- 
perial diadem, as chrysoprase stands in the second rank of precious 
stones, but so splendid a specimen of its kind as to be too fine for 
anything meaner than a crown. So Colombe, her claim being dis- 
allowed, could not be Duchess in her own right, but was too noble 
to be allowed to descend to common life. 

I53» ^79- how use Juliers* Dukes? What is the use 
(custom) of Dukes in Juliers ? 

153, 180. you have them here. Their statues decorate 
the hall. That of Luitpold, the father of Colombe, is in bronze. 
In his bewilderment at the turn affairs have taken, Valence stands 
as motionless as the statue (1. 186). 

i55» 229-231. reality, tradition, fancy, and fact 
make in the eyes of the world a *' mystic panoply ' * which even 
with no knight within it — * ' untenanted ' * — is of force enough 
to awe mankind. The idea is that kingship in itself inspires awe, 
and this Berthold means to wear as an armor, out of which he can 
at will slip to follow out his purposes. The passage is too indirect to 



192 ^Ctte 

be effective on the stage, nor does it entirely commend itself as a 
figure. It savors too much of the conceit. 

154-156,208-251. He gathers. . . earthly world. 
In the first form of the play this speech of Valence was of little more 
than half its present length. Edmund Gosse in his Personalia re- 
cords that in a copy of this play marked by Browning, ** The stage 
directions arc numerous and minute. . . . Some of the suggestions 
are characteristic enough. For instance, * unless a very good Va- 
lence * is found, this extremely fine speech, perhaps the jewel of the 
play, is to be left out.** 

156, 242. his step or stalk. Whether he walks naturally 
or stalks in anger. 

156, 245. Till , . . most power. The seeming obscur- 
ity here is rather in the subtilty of the thought than in the expression. 
The leader comes to stand for so much, his dependants so rest 
upon what he represents as the " typified invincibility " of political 
order that more than by his power are they moved by the fear lest 
harm come to him ; his weakness and the possibility that he should 
be in peril eflfect more than even his power. 

157, 264. for my father's sake. She thanks Berthold 
for oflFering her a marriage which will allow her to hold the place it 
was her father's wish that she have. Accepting him, she does not 
take a hand in marriage which under the terms of her father's will 
would degrade her rank. 

157, 267-71. Had that been ... he asks. If the 

Prince loved her it is so possible he might be subject to her will and 
her desire for the good of the world under them — of which Cleves 
was a part — that Valence would not dare to hope that she would 
refuse him 5 although he assumes that Colombe could not return 
such love, but must make the marriage only as a sacrifice. 

158,273. What does he? A beautifully human but subtle 
touch. Colombe asserts that the deeds of the Prince prove his love ; 
Valence seizes the idea that deeds which prove love must involve 
sacrifice ; to have proposed marriage to Colombe cannot be looked 
upon as self-denial ; and he involuntarily asks what Bertold has 
done. Instantly, of course, he perceives the absurdity of his position, 
and adds the second half of the line. 

158,276. Sorrow . . . dream. Absorbed in his passion, 



^ott& 193 

Valence has unconsciously assumed that to Colombe as to him rank 
and power are of little consequence in comparison to love, but now 
it occurs to him that the Duchess may be more deeply grieved to 
lose her place than he had realized. 

158-159, 287-293. Because . . . may. Valence perhaps 
here loses the sympathy of the reader a little. It is obviously his 
duty to present the offer of Berthold without prejudice, and his insist- 
ence upon the Duke's lack of love, while we may attribute it to 
his own passion, has the effect of self-interest. The weakness of 
the passage is undoubtedly due to the poet*s lack of stagecraft, and 
is an interesting example of the way in which he was hampered by 
dramatic necessities. He is so intent upon preparing for the love 
scene which is to follow that he fails to appreciate the danger of 
making his hero appear more weak and- less noble than he has 
thus far been represented. 

I59> 30^-303- Well ... in you? **The performance 
of Miss Davenport was an excellent analysis of the play. In [this] 
line . . . her voice sank to the tone of plaintive bewilderment, it 
being, * Well, what 's gone from me ?' spoken to herself ; then it 
is raised as she turns directly to Valence, and says, * What have I 
lost in you ? ' " — Moncure D. Conway. 

l6l, 329. All done was done for her. There is an equi- 
voque in the words of Valence. All done was done for the woman 
I loved, not only what I did but the honor which was given to my 
humble self — * to me humble * — was for you, Duchess. 

161, 332. Are there sweeter things. Colombe feels 
that were she the other woman nothing could be sweeter than to 
know that when Valence was speaking at Cleves so that he moved 
the Duchess he did all for the sake of her love. In no other scene 
in Browning's plays is the favorite stage device of misconception — 
equivoque — so effectively used as here. Its only drawback is that 
it is in parts too subtle to be readily followed by an audience. 

i6i, 340. above me and away. Above and away both 
in a figurative sense. 

163, 371. (Obey I) It is not always easy to follow the in- 
tention of Browning's punctuation, especially in its inconsistencies. 
A parenthesis is in general used for a remark meant to be an aside. 
Here is shown an Interpolation. After ** thinking it ..." Co- 



194 ^tte 

lombe, perhaps carried away by a sense of all she thinks Valence 
to be, breaks off suddenly ; then to cover her disturbance of mind, 
she interjects the command, ** Obey ! ** which would seem almost 
to need to be given with some faint shade of archness. The dra- 
matic situation in reading seems to be injured by the words ** Then 
kneel to her ! '* but delivered as a continuation of the preceding 
speech they would when spoken have their proper value and effect. 

165, 419. Yet . . . rival then ! "I remember well to 
have seen a vast miscellaneous crowd in an American theatre hanging 
with breathless attention upon every word of this interview, down 
to the splendid climax where, in obedience to the Duchess's direc- 
tion to Valence how he should reveal his love to the lady she so 
little suspects herself to be, he kneels, — every heart evidently feel- 
ing each word as an electric touch, and all giving vent at last to 
their emotion in round after round of hearty applause. Indeed, dur- 
ing the entire performance I took occasion, at passages that might 
have been thought by some readers abstruse, to look around and see 
if I could discover a flickering intelligence in any face, but was con- 
vinced that the whole was thoroughly comprehended and felt by 
the entire audience.*' — Moncure D. Conway. This was written 
in comment upon the performance in Boston, 1854. 

166, 2. Amelius. Which he was studying. See iii, 71. 
166, 3. this grand disclosure. The declaration to Va- 
lence by Berthold of his willingness to marry Colombe. 

166, 10. Let her commence. Berthold naturally supposes 
that Colombe, if dethroned, will follow his own policy. 

167, 19. The hour beneath the convent-wall. The 
effect of the repetition of the allusion to this episode in Berthold' s 
past is the opposite of what he would persuade himself. The Prince 
would convince himself that he has cast sentiment aside, but to the 
audience he gives the impression that a mind in which a lost love 
could be so constantly present must be very far from insensitive. 
It makes more probable, also, his touch of sentiment at the close 
of the play. 

167, 22. Elude the adventure. Melchior has more of the 
Shakespearean touch than any other character in Browning's plays. 
A scholar and not a man of action himself, he longs for that stren- 
uousness in Berthold which he is fully aware can come into his 
own studious life only vicariously. He was disappointed that Juliers 



0ott& 195 

seemed to be gained without a struggle (iii, 9) ; and he evidently 
feels that Berthold would be more firmly established on a throne 
which he had achieved by strength rather than completely by in- 
trigue. His own life one of thought and shadows, Melchior is by 
reason and by instinct eager that the Prince shall be developed 
through action, and he is not satisfied that Berthold shall show for 
less emotional than he is by nature. Of course dramatically it is 
Melchior' s part here to emphasize Colombe's coming demand for 
love. 

167,28. We seem . . . at end. This passage has been 
commended, but it seems rather of the nineteenth century than the 
seventeenth. The figure of the masque is in any case far too elab- 
orate. Whether it is in keeping with the character of the speaker 
each reader may decide for himself. 

169, 61. Ill cannot speed — not I — the Emperor. 
The inversion is awkward, and is made doubly so by the extra 
negative. 

169,72. my true worth. That is, my rank. The cynicism 
of Berthold here comes to a climax. 

172, 117. Charlemagne, perhaps. **I could perhaps 

love a man who realized my dream of glory as did Charlemagne. * * 
177, 226-227. Yon marble . . . will let fall. It is 

perhaps interesting to compare these lines with the passage in the 
poem which is so associated with the first acquaintance of Robert 
Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, Lady Geraldine*s Courtship ,• 

" Whereby lies a marble Silence, sleeping ! (Lough the sculptor wrought 
her.) 
So asleep she is forgetting to say Hush — a fancy quaint. 
Mark how heavy white her eyelids ! not a dream between them lingers. 
And the left hand's index droppeth from the lips upon the cheek j 
While the right hand — with the symbol rose held slack between the 

fingers — 
Has fallen backward in the basin. . . . 

' Nay, your Silence,' said I, ' truly holds her symbol rose but slackly, 
Yet she holds it — or would scarcely be a Silence to our ken.' " 

184, 358. know you through your Popes and 

Kings. Melchior calls upon the true manhood which he knows 
to exist in Berthold. He pierces through the worldling the Prince 
seem to be in his dealings with Popes and Kings. 

185, 380. Dietrich the black Barnabite. A monk 
of the order of St. Barnabas, and presumably one who will prove a 
stern master. 



fn a "Balconi? 



PERSONS. 



NORBERT. 

Constance. 
The Queen. 



Persons. Not in A. The 1888 ed. is followed here. 



gin a l3alcont 

1853 



Constance and Norhert, 

Norbert, Now ! 
Constance. Not now ! 

Norh, Give me them again, those hands : 
Put them upon my forehead, how it throbs ! 
Press them before my eyes, the fire comes 

through ! 
You cruellest, you dearest in the world, 
Let me ! The Queen must grant whate'er I 

ask — 
How can I gain you and not ask the Queen ? 
There she stays waiting for me, here stand 

you; 
Some time or other this was to be asked ; 
Now is the one time — what I ask, I gain : 
Let me ask now. Love ! 

Const. Do, and ruin us. 

Norb. Let it be now. Love ! All my soul 
breaks forth. 

In A the play was divided into three parts ; the words First 
Part standing between the title and Constance and Norbtrt, 



200 3fln a llBaltonp 

How I do love you ! Give my love its way ! 
A man can have but one life and one death, 
One heaven, one hell. Let me fulfil my fate — 
Grant me my heaven now ! Let me know you 

mine, 15 

Prove you mine, write my name upon your brow. 
Hold you and have you, and then die away. 
If God please, with completion in my soul ! 
Const. I am not yours then ? How content 

this man ! 
I am not his — who change into himself. 
Have passed into his heart and beat its beats. 
Who give my hands to him, my eyes, my hair. 
Give all that was of me away to him — 
So well, that now, my spirit turned his own. 
Takes part with him against the woman here, 25 
Bids him not stumble at so mere a straw 
As caring that the world be cognizant 
How he loves her and how she worships him. 
You have this woman, not as yet that world. 
Go on, I bid, nor stop to care for me 30J 

By saving what I cease to care about. 
The courtly name and pride of circumstance — 
The name you '11 pick up and be cumbered with 
Just for the poor parade's sake, nothing more ; 
Just that the world may slip from under you — 35! 
Just that the world may cry " So much for 

him — 



3|n a llBalcon^ 201 

" The man predestined to the heap of crowns : 
" There goes his chance of winning one, at 
least ! " 

Norh. The world ! 

Const, You love it. Love me quite as well, 
And see if I shall pray for this in vain ! 40 

Why must you ponder what it knows or thinks ? 

Norh. You pray for — what, in vain ? 

Const. Oh my heart's heart, 

How I do love you, Norbert ! That is right : 
But listen, or I take my hands away ! 
You say, " let it be now " : you would go now 45 
And tell the Queen, perhaps six steps from us. 
You love me — so you do, thank God ! 

Norh, Thank God ! 

Const. Yes, Norbert, — but you fain would 
tell your love. 
And, what succeeds the telling, ask of her 
My hand. Now take this rose and look at it, 50 
Listening to me. You are the minister. 
The Queen's first favourite, nor without a cause. 
To-night completes your wonderful year's-work 
(This palace-feast is held to celebrate) 
Made memorable by her life's success, 55 

The junction of two crowns, on her sole head, 
Her house had only dreamed of anciently: 
That this mere dream is grown a stable truth. 
To-night's feast makes authentic. Whose the 
praise ? 



202 ^n a llBalcon^ 

Whose genius, patience, energy, achieved 60 

What turned the many heads and broke the 

hearts ? 
You are the fate, your minute 's in the heaven. 
Next comes the Queen's turn. " Name your 

own reward ! " 
With leave to clench the past, chain the to-come, 
Put out an arm and touch and take the sun 65 

And fix it ever full-faced on your earth. 
Possess yourself supremely of her life, — 
You choose the single thing she will not grant ; 
Nay, very declaration of which choice 
Will turn the scale and neutralize your work : 70 
At best she will forgive you, if she can. 
You think I '11 let you choose — her cousin's 

hand ? 
Norb. Wait. First, do you retain your old 

belief 
The Queen is generous, — nay, is just ? 

Const. There, there ! 

So men make women love them, while they know 75 
No more of women's hearts than . . . look you 

here. 
You that are just and generous beside. 
Make it your own case ! For example now, 
I '11 say — I let you kiss me, hold my hands — 
Why ? do you know why ? I '11 instruct you, 

then — 80 

69 Nay, very. A, The very. 



3|n a 31Balcon^ 203 

The kiss, because you have a name at court ; 
This hand and this, that you may shut in each 
A jewel, if you please to pick up such. 
That 's horrible ? Apply it to the Queen — 
Suppose I am the Queen to whom you speak : 85 
'' I was a nameless man ; you needed me : 
'' Why did I proffer you my aid ? there stood 
'' A certain pretty cousin at your side. 
" Why did I make such common cause with you? 
'' Access to her had not been easy else. 90 

'' You give my labour here abundant praise ? 
" 'Faith, labour, which she overlooked, grew play. 
"How shall your gratitude discharge itself? 
" Give me her hand ! " 

Norb. And still I urge the same. 

Is the Queen just ? just — generous or no ! 95 

Const, Yes, just. You love a rose ; no harm 
in that : 
But was it for the rose's sake or mine 
You put it in your bosom ? mine, you said — 
Then, mine you still must say or else be false. 
You told the Queen you served her for herself; 100 
If so, to serve her was to serve yourself. 
She thinks, for all your unbelieving face ! 
I know her. In the hall, six steps from us. 
One sees the twenty pictures ; there 's a life 
Better than life, and yet no life at all. 105 

91 labour. A, labours. 92 ivhich. A, while. 



204 ^n a llBalcon^ 

Conceive her born in such a magic dome, 
Pictures all round her ! why, she sees the world, 
Can recognize its given things and facts. 
The fight of giants or the feast of gods. 
Sages in senate, beauties at the bath. 
Chases and battles, the whole earth's display. 
Landscape and sea-piece, down to flowers and 

fruit — 
And who shall question that she knows them 

all. 
In better semblance than the things outside ? 
Yet bring into the silent gallery 115 

Some live thing to contrast in breath and blood. 
Some lion, with the painted lion there — 
You think she '11 understand composedly ? 
— Say, " that 's his fellow in the hunting-piece 
" Yonder, I 've turned to praise a hundred 

times ? " 
Not so. Her knowledge of our actual earth. 
Its hopes and fears, concerns and sympathies. 
Must be too far, too mediate, too unreal. 
The real exists for us outside, not her : 
How should it, with that life in these four 

walls — 125 

That father and that mother, first to last 
No father and no mother — friends, a heap. 
Lovers, no lack — a husband in due time. 
And every one of them alike a lie ! 



I 



31n a Balcony 205 

Things painted by a Rubens out of nought 130 

Into what kindness, friendship, love should be ; 
All better, all more grandiose than the life. 
Only no life ; mere cloth and surface-paint, 
You feel, while you admire. How should she 

feel ? 
Yet now that she has stood thus fifty years 135 

The sole spectator in that gallery. 
You think to bring this warm real struggling 

love 
In to her of a sudden, and suppose 
She '11 keep her state untroubled ? Here 's the 

truth — 
She '11 apprehend truth's value at a glance, 140 

Prefer it to the pictured loyalty ? 
You only have to say, " so men are made, 
" For this they act ; the thing has many names, 
'^ But this the right one : and now. Queen, be 

just!" 
Your life slips back ; you lose her at the word : 145 
You do not even for amends gain me. 
He will not understand ; oh, Norbert, Norbert, 
Do you not understand ? 

Norb, The Queen 's the Queen : 

I am myself — no picture, but alive 
In every nerve and every muscle, here 150 

132 than the life. A, than life. 135 Tet, A, And. 

140 truth' % 'Value, A, its value. 145 Tour life. A, And life. ^ 



2o6 3f|n a 315alconp | 

At the palace-window o'er the people's street, 
As she in the gallery where the pictures glow : 
The good of life is precious to us both. 
She cannot love ; what do I want with rule ? 
When first I saw your face a year ago 155 

I knew my life's good, my soul heard one 

voice — 
" The woman yonder, there 's no use of life 
" But just to obtain her ! heap earth's woes in 

one 
" And bear them — make a pile of all earth's 

joys 
" And spurn them, as they help or help not this ; 160 
" Only, obtain her ! " How was it to be ? 
I found you were the cousin of the Queen ; 
I must then serve the Queen to get to you. 
No other way. Suppose there had been one. 
And I, by saying prayers to some white star 165 
With promise of my body and my soul. 
Might gain you, — should I pray the star or no ? 
Instead, there was the Queen to serve ! I served. 
Helped, did what other servants failed to do. 
Neither she sought nor I declared my end. 170 

Her good is hers, my recompense be mine, — 
I therefore name you as that recompense. 

151 o'er the. A, or in the. i6o thh. A, here. 162 you 
nvere. A, she was. 163 you. A, her. 169 Helped^ did, 
A, And did. 172/ therefore name. A, And let me name. 



I 



3|n a Balcony 207 

She dreamed that such a thing could never be ? 
Let her wake now. She thinks there was more 

cause 
In love of power, high fame, pure loyalty ? 175 

Perhaps she fancies men wear out their lives 
Chasing such shades. Then, I 've a fancy too ; 
I worked because I want you with my soul : 
I therefore ask your hand. Let it be now ! 
Const, Had I not loved you from the very 

first, 180 

Were I not yours, could we not steal out thus 
So wickedly, so wildly, and so well. 
You might become impatient. What 's conceived 
Of us without here, by the folk within ? 
Where are you now ? immersed in cares of 

state — 185 

Where am I now? intent on festal robes — 
We two, embracing under death's spread hand ! 
What was this thought for, what that scruple of 

yours 
Which broke the council up ? — to bring about 
One minute's meeting in the corridor ! . 190 

And then the sudden sleights, strange secrecies, 
Complots inscrutable, deep telegraphs, 

174 more cause. A, some cause. 175 high fame. A, of fame. 
1%T^ become. A, be thus. i%^folk. A, folks. 

188 that scruple. A, this scruple. 

191 strange secrecies. A, long secrecies. 

192 Complots. A, The plots. 



2o8 3(in a llBalconp 

Long-planned chance-meetings, hazards of a 

look, 
" Does she know ? does she not know ? saved 

or lost ? '' 
A year of this compression's ecstasy 195 

All goes for nothing ! you would give this up 
For the old way, the open way, the world's. 
His way who beats, and his who sells his wife ! 
What tempts you ? — their notorious happiness 
Makes you ashamed of ours ? The best you '11 

gain 200 

Will be — the Queen grants all that you require, 
Concedes the cousin, rids herself of you 
And me at once, and gives us ample leave 
To live like our five hundred happy friends. 
The world will show us with officious hand 205 
Our chamber-entry, and stand sentinel 
Where we so oft have stolen across its traps 1 
Get the world's warrant, ring the falcons' feet. 
And make it duty to be bold and swift. 
Which long ago was nature. Have it so ! 210 

We never hawked by rights till flung from fist ? 
Oh, the man's thought ! no woman 's such a 

fool. 

200 Makes you. A, Thatyou *re. you ''11 gain. A, you * 11 get. 

202 rids herself of you. A, and gets rid of you. 

203 And me. A, And her. 204 like. A, as. 

207 its traps. A, her traps. 10% falcons* feet. A, falcon's foot. 
210 Which long ago ivas nature. A, When long ago 't was 
nature. 211 TVe. A, He. 



3In a 5!5alconi? 209 

Norh, Yes, the man's thought and my thought, 

which is more — 
One made to love you, let the world take note ! 
Have I done worthy work ? be love's the praise, 215 
Though hampered by restrictions, barred against 
By set forms, blinded by forced secrecies ! 
Set free my love, and see what love can do 
Shown in my life — what work will spring from 

that ! 
The world is used to have its business done 220 
On other grounds, find great effects produced 
For power's sake, fame's sake, motives in men's 

mouth. 
So, good : but let my low ground shame their 

high ! 
Truth is the strong thing. Let man's life be 

true! 
And love 's the truth of mine. Time prove the 

rest ! 225 

I choose to wear you stamped all over me. 
Your name upon my forehead and my breast, 
You, from the sword's blade to the ribbon's 

edge. 
That men may see, all over, you in me — 
That pale loves may die out of their pretence 230 
In face of mine, shames thrown on love fall off. 

218 can do. A, will do. 222 moti'ves in men'^s mouth. 

A, motives you have named. 226 to ivear. A, to have. 



210 3In a Balcony 

Permit this, Constance ! Love has been so long 

Subdued in me, eating me through and through, 

That now 't is all of me and must have way. 

Think of my work, that chaos of intrigues, 235 

Those hopes and fears, surprises and delays. 

That long endeavour, earnest, patient, slow, 

Trembling at last to its assured result : 

Then think of this revulsion ! I resume 

Life after death, (it is no less than life, 240 

After such long unlovely labouring days) 

And liberate to beauty life's great need 

O' the beautiful, which, while it prompted work, 

Suppressed itself erewhile. This eve 's the time. 

This eve intense with yon first trembling star 245 

We seem to pant and reach; scarce aught 

between 
The earth that rises and the heaven that bends ; 
All nature self-abandoned, every tree 
Flung as it will, pursuing its own thoughts 
And fixed so, every flower and every weed, 250 
No pride, no shame, no victory, no defeat ; 
All under God, each measured by itself. 
These statues round us stand abrupt, distinct. 
The strong in strength, the weak in weakness 

fixed, 
The Muse for ever wedded to her lyre, 255 

234 ^tis. A, it's. 243 0' the. A, Of the. 

253 stand abrupt. A, each abrupt. 



i 



3|n a llBalconp 211 

Nymph to her fawn, and Silence to her rose : 

See God's approval on his universe ! 

Let us do so — aspire to live as these 

In harmony with truth, ourselves being true ! 

Take the first way, and let the second come ! 260 

My first is to possess myself of you ; 

The music sets the march-step — forward, then ! 

And there 's the Queen, I go to claim you of, 

The world to witness, wonder and applaud. 

Our flower of life breaks open. No delay ! 265 

Const. And so shall we be ruined, both of us. 
Norbert, I know her to the skin and bone : 
You do not know her, were not born to it. 
To feel what she can see or cannot see. 
Love, she is generous, — ay, despite your smile, 270 
Generous as you are : for, in that thin frame 
Pain-twisted, punctured through and through 

with cares. 
There lived a lavish soul until it starved. 
Debarred of healthy food. Look to the soul — 
Pity that, stoop to that, ere you begin 275 

(The true man's-way) on justice and your rights, 
Exactions and acquittance of the past ! 
Begin so — see what justice she will deal ! 
We women hate a debt as men a gift. 
Suppose her some poor keeper of a school aSo 

256 Nymph. A, The nymph, and. A, the, 

257 See, A, And. 274 of. A, all. 



212 3|n a llBalcon^ 

Whose business is to sit thro' summer months 

And dole out children leave to go and play, 

Herself superior to such lightness — she 

In the arm-chair's state ana paedagogic pomp — 

To the life, the laughter, sun and youth outside : 285 

We wonder such a face looks black on us ? 

I do not bid you wake her tenderness, 

(That were vain truly — none is left to wake) 

But let her think her justice is engaged 

To take the shape of tenderness, and mark 290 

If she '11 not coldly pay its warmest debt ! 

Does she love me, I ask you ? not a whit : 

Yet, thinking that her justice was engaged 

To help a kinswoman, she took me up — 

Did more on that bare ground than other loves 295 

Would do on greater argument. For me, 

I have no equivalent of such cold kind 

To pay her with, but love alone to give 

If I give anything. I give her love : 

I feel I ought to help her, and I will. 300 

So, for her sake, as yours, I tell you twice 

That women hate a debt as men a gift. 

If I were you, I could obtain this grace — 

Could lay the whole I did to love's account, 

282 children. A, children's. 286 a face. A, an one. 

291 pay its ^warmest debt. A, do its warmest deed. 
297 such. A, that. 298 but lo've. A, my love. 

304 Could lay. A, Would lay. 



3|rt a llBalcon^ 213 

Nor yet be very false as courtiers go — 3^5 

Declaring my success was recompense ; 

It would be so, in fact : what were it else ? 

And then, once loose her generosity, — 

Oh, how I see it ! — then, were I but you, 

To turn it, let it seem to move itself, 3^° 

And make it offer what I really take. 

Accepting just, in the poor cousin's hand. 

Her value as the next thing to the Queen's — 

Since none love Queens directly, none dare that. 

And a thing's shadow or a name's mere echo 3^5 

Suffices those who miss the name and thing ! 

You pick up just a ribbon she has worn. 

To keep in proof how near her breath you came. 

Say, I 'm so near I seem a piece of her — 

Ask for me that way — (oh, you understand) ^^o 

You 'd find the same gift yielded with a grace. 

Which, if you make the least show to extort . . . 

— You'll see ! and when you have ruined both 

of us. 
Dissertate on the Queen's ingratitude ! 

Norb. Then, if I turn it that way, you con- 
sent ? 3^5 

306 Declaring. A, Declare that. 308 loose. A, loosed. 

309 OA, hoiv I see it ! A, As you will mark it — . 

311 offer what. A, give the thing. 312 just. A, so. 

313 Her. A, All. ^een^s. A, Queen. 

314 lo've ^eens. A, loves her. dare, A, dares. 

315 ^nd . . . echo. A, A shadow of a thing, a name's mere 
echo. 321 Tou^d. A, And. 



214 



3|n a llBalcon? 



'T is not my way ; I have more hope in truth : 
Still, if you won't have truth — why, this indeed, 
Were scarcely false, as I 'd express the sense. 
Will you remain here ? 

Const. O best heart of mine. 

How I have loved you ! then, you take my way ? 330 
Are mine as you have been her minister, 
Work out my thought, give it effect for me, 
Paint plain my poor conceit and make it serve ? 
I owe that withered woman everything- — 
Life, fortune, you, remember ! Take my part — 335 
Help me to pay her ! Stand upon your rights ? 
You, with my rose, my hands, my heart on you ? 
Your rights are mine — you have no rights but 
mine. 

Norh, Remain here. How you know me ! 

Const. Ah, but still 

He breaks from her: she remains. 
Dance-music from within. 

Enter the ^ueen. 

^een. Constance ? She is here as he said. 

Speak quick ! 340 

Is it so ? Is it true or false ? One word ! 
Const. True. 



328 as I'd. A, I '11 so. 

He . . , ivithin. A places Second Part between this and Enter 
the ^een. 340 Speak quick ! A, Speak ! Quick ! 



31n a llBalconi? 215 

^een. Mercifullest Mother, thanks to 

thee! 

Const, Madam ? 

^een. I love you, Constance, from my 

soul. 
Now say once more, with any words you will, 
'T is true, all true, as true as that I speak. 345 

Const. Why should you doubt it ? 

^een. Ah, why doubt ? why doubt .? 

Dear, make me see it ! Do you see it so ? 
None see themselves ; another sees them best. 
You say " why doubt it ? " — you see him and 

me. 
It is because the Mother has such grace 35© 

That if we had but faith — wherein we fail — 
Whate'er we yearn for would be granted us ; 
Yet still we let our whims prescribe despair, 
Our fancies thwart and cramp our will and 

power. 
And while, accepting life, abjure its use. 355 

Constance, I had abjured the hope of love 
And being loved, as truly as yon palm 
The hope of seeing Egypt from that plot. 

Const. Heaven ! 



353 Tet still. A, Howbeit. 354 Our fancies. A, Our very- 
fancies, our ivill and poiver. A, our will. 355 And while 
. . . use. A, And so accepting life, abjure ourselves. 357 And 
being. A, And of being. 358 plot. A, turf. 



2l6 



3In a Balcony 



^een. But it was so, Constance, it was so ! 
Men say — or do men say it ? fancies say — 360 
'' Stop here, your life is set, you are grown old. 
" Too late — no love for you, too late for love — 
" Leave love to girls. Be queen : let Constance 

love." 
One takes the hint — half meets it like a child, 
Ashamed at any feelings that oppose. 365 

" Oh love, true, never think of love again ! 
'' I am a queen : I rule, not love forsooth." 
So it goes on ; so a face grows like this. 
Hair like this hair, poor arms as lean as these. 
Till, — nay, it does not end so, I thank God ! 370 

Const. I cannot understand — 

^ueen. The happier you ! 

Constance, I know not how it is with men : 
For women (I am a woman now like you) 
There is no good of life but love — but love ! 
What else looks good, is some shade flung from 

love ; 375 

Love gilds it, gives it worth. Be warned by me, 
Never you cheat yourself one instant ! Love, 
Give love, ask only love, and leave the rest ! 
O Constance, how I love you ! 

Const. I love you. 

^een. I do believe that all is come through 
you. 380 

367 forsooth. A, Indeed. 



3In a llBalconi? 217 

I took you to my heart to keep it warm 
When the last chance of love seemed dead in 

me ; 
I thought your fresh youth warmed my withered 

heart. 
Oh, I am very old now, am I not ? 
Not so ! it is true and it shall be true ! 385 

Const. Tell it me : let me judge if true or 

false. 
^een. Ah, but I fear you ! you will look at 

me 
And say, " she 's old, she 's grown unlovely 

quite 
'' Who ne'er was beauteous : men want beauty 

still." 
Well, so I feared — the curse ! so I felt sure ! 390 
Const. Be calm. And now you feel not sure, 

you say ? 
^een. Constance, he came, — the coming 

was not strange — 
Do not I stand and see men come and go ? 
I turned a half-look from my pedestal 
Where I grow marble — " one young man the 

more ! 395 

'' He will love some one ; that is nought to me : 
'' What would he with my marble stateliness ? " 
Yet this seemed somewhat worse than heretofore ; 
The man more gracious, youthful, like a god, 



2i8 3|n a 515alconp 

And I still older, with less flesh to change — 400 
We two those dear extremes that long to touch. 
It seemed still harder when he first began 
To labour at those state-afFairs, absorbed 
The old way for the old end — interest. 
Oh, to live with a thousand beating hearts 405 

Around you, swift eyes, serviceable hands, 
Professing they 've no care but for your cause, 
Thought but to help you, love but for your- 
self, — 
And you the marble statue all the time 
They praise and point at as preferred to life, 410 
Yet leave for the first breathing woman's smile, 
First dancer's, gipsy's or street baladine's ! 
Why, how I have ground my teeth to hear men's 

speech 
Stifled for fear it should alarm my ear, 
Their gait subdued lest step should startle me, 415 
Their eyes declined, such queendom to respect, 
Their hands alert, such treasure to preserve. 
While not a man of them broke rank and spoke, 
Wrote me a vulgar letter all of love. 
Or caught my hand and pressed it like a hand ! 420 
There have been moments, if the sentinel 
Lowering his halbert to salute the queen. 
Had flung it brutally and clasped my knees, 

403 To labour . , . absorbed. A, Absorbed to labour at the 
State-affairs. 411 'woman' s smile. A, woman's cheek. 
418 of them. A, of these. 419 Wrote, A, Or wrote. 



Kin a Balcony 219 

I would have stooped and kissed him with my 
soul. 

Const, Who could have comprehended ? 

^een. Ay, who — who ? 425 

Why, no one, Constance, but this one who did. 
Not they, not you, not I. Even now perhaps 
It comes too late — would you but tell the truth. 

Const, I wait to tell it. 

^een. Well, you see, he came. 

Outfaced the others, did a work this year 430 

Exceeds in value all was ever done. 
You know — it is not I who say it — all 
Say it. And so (a second pang and worse) 
I grew aware not only of what he did. 
But why so wondrously. Oh, never work 435 

Like his was done for work's ignoble sake — 
Souls need a finer aim to light and lure ! 
I felt, I saw, he loved — loved somebody. 
And Constance, my dear Constance, do you 

know, 
I did believe this while 't was you he loved. 440 

Const, Me, madam ? 

^ueen. It did seem to me, your face 

Met him where'er he looked : and whom but you 
Was such a man to love ? It seemed to me, 
You saw he loved you, and approved his love, 

437 Siouh need . . . lure. A, It must have finer aims to spur it 
on. 444 his lo've. A, the love. 



220 3ln a llBalcon? 

And both of you were in intelligence. 445 

You could not loiter in that garden, step 

Into this balcony, but I straight was stung 

And forced to understand. It seemed so true, 

So right, so beautiful, so like you both. 

That all this work should have been done by him 450 . 

Not for the vulgar hope of recompense. 

But that at last — suppose, some night like 

this — 
Borne on to claim his due reward of me. 
He might say " Give her hand and pay me so." 
And I (O Constance, you shall love me now !) 455 
I thought, surmounting all the bitterness, 
— '' And he shall have it. I will make her blest, 
" My flower of youth, my woman's self that was, 
" My happiest woman's self that might have 

been ! 
" These two shall have their joy and leave me 

here." 460 

Yes — yes ! 
Const. Thanks ! 

^een. And the word was on my lips 

When he burst in upon me. I looked to hear 
A mere calm statement of his just desire 
For payment of his labour. When — O heaven, 
How can I tell you ? lightning on my eyes 465 

445 And both of you. A, And that you both. 446 that, 
A, the. 465 lightning. A, cloud was. 



31n a Balcony 221 

And thunder in my ears proved that first word 
Which told 't was love of me, of me, did all — 
He loved me — from the first step to the last, 
Loved me ! 

Const, You hardly saw, scarce heard him 

speak 
Of love : what if you should mistake ? 

^een. No, no — 470 

No mistake ! Ha, there shall be no mistake ! 
He had not dared to hint the love he felt — 
You were my reflex — (how I understood !) 
He said you were the ribbon I had worn. 
He kissed my hand, he looked into my eyes, 475 
And love, love came at end of every phrase. 
Love is begun ; this much is come to pass : 
The rest is easy. Constance, I am yours ! 
I will learn, I will place my life on you. 
Teach me but how to keep what I have won ! 480 
Am I so old ? This hair W2ts early grey ; 
But joy ere now has brought hair brown again. 
And joy will bring the cheek's red back, I feel. 
I could sing once too ; that was in my youth. 
Still, when men paint me, they declare me . . . 

yes, 485 

Beautiful — for the last French painter did ! 

466 pro'ved that. A, at that. 469 Tou hardly . . . speak. 
A, You did not hear . . . you thought he spoke. 476 came at 
end. A, was the end. 480 Teach me but. A, But teach me. 



222 jfitt a llBalcons 

I know they flatter somewhat ; you are frank — 
I trust you. How I loved you from the first ! 
Some queens would hardly seek a cousin out 
And set her by their side to take the eye : 490 

I must have felt that good would come from you. 
I am not generous — like him — like you ! 
But he is not your lover after all : 
It was not you he looked at. Saw you him ? 
You have not been mistaking words or looks ? 495 
He said you were the reflex of myself. 
And yet he is not such a paragon 
To you, to younger women who may choose 
Among a thousand Norberts. Speak the truth ! 
You know you never named his name to me : 500 
Yoii know, I cannot give him up — ah God, 
Not up now, even to you ! 

Const. Then calm yourself. 

^een. See, I am old — look here, you happy 
girl! 
I will not play the fool, deceive — ah, whom ? 
'Tis all gone: put your cheek beside my cheek 505 
And what a contrast does the moon behold ! 
But then I set my life upon one chance. 
The last chance and the best — am / not left. 
My soul, myself? All women love great men 
If young or old ; it is in all the tales : 510 

Young beauties love old poets who can love — 

504 ahy luhom. A, myself. 506 And ivhat. A, Ah, what. 



3Hn a Balcony 223 

Why should not he, the poems in my soul, 
The passionate faith, the pride of sacrifice. 
Life-long, death-long ? I throw them at his feet. 
Who cares to see the fountain's very shape, 515 
Whether it be a Triton's or a Nymph's 
That pours the foam, makes rainbows all around? 
You could not praise indeed the empty conch ; 
But I '11 pour floods of love and hide myself. 
How I will love him ! Cannot men love love ? 520 
Who was a queen and loved a poet once 
Humpbacked, a dwarf? ah, women can do that ! 
Well, but men too ; at least, they tell you so. 
They love so many women in their youth. 
And even in age they all love whom they please ; 525 
And yet the best of them confide to friends 
That 't is not beauty makes the lasting love — 
They spend a day with such and tire the next : 
They like soul, — well then, they like phantasy, 
Novelty even. Let us confess the truth, 530 

Horrible though it be, that prejudice. 
Prescription . . . curses ! they will love a queen. 
They will, they do : and will not, does not — 

he? 
Const. How can he ? You are wedded : 't is 

a name 

513—514 The passionate . . . death-long A reads: 

The love, the passionate faith, the sacrifice. 
The constancy ? 

516 Whether. A, And whether. 



224 31n a 515alcon^ 

We know, but still a bond. Your rank remains, 535 
His rank remains. How can he, nobly souled 
As you believe and I incline to think. 
Aspire to be your favourite, shame and all ? 
^een. Hear her ! There, there now — could 

she love like me ? 
What did I say of smooth-cheeked youth and 

grace ? 540 

See all it does'or could do ! so youth loves ! 
Oh, tell him, Constance, you could never do 
What I will — you, it was not born in ! I 
Will drive these difficulties far and fast 
As yonder mists curdling before the moon. 545 

I '11 use my light too, gloriously retrieve 
My youth from its enforced calamity. 
Dissolve that hateful marriage, and be his. 
His own in the eyes alike of God and man. 
Const. You will do — dare do . . . pause on 

what you say ! 550 

^een. Hear her ! I thank you, sweet, for 

that surprise. 
You have the fair face ; for the soul, see mine ! 
I have the strong soul : let me teach yoii, here. 
I think I have borne enough and long enough. 
And patiently enough, the world remarks, 555 

To have my own way now, unblamed by all. 
It does so happen (I rejoice for it) 
This most unhoped-for issue cuts the knot. 



^n a Balcony 225 

There 's not a better way of settling claims 

Than this ; God sends the accident express : 560 

And were it for my subjects' good, no more, 

'T were best thus ordered. I am thankful now, 

Mute, passive, acquiescent. I receive, 

And bless God simply, or should almost fear 

To walk so smoothly to my ends at last. 565 

Why, how I baffle obstacles, spurn fate! 

How strong I am ! Could Norbert see me now ! 

Const. Let me consider. It is all too strange. 

^een. You, Constance, learn of me ; do you, 
like me ! 
You are young, beautiful : my own, best girl, 570 
You will have many lovers, and love one — 
Light hair, not hair like Norbert's, to suit yours : 
Taller than he is, since yourself are tall. 
Love him, like me ! Give all away to him ; 
Think never of yourself; throw by your pride, 575 
Hope, fear, — your own good as you saw it 

once. 
And love him simply for his very self. 
Remember, I (and what am I to you ?) 
Would give up all for one, leave throne, lose 

life. 
Do all but just unlove him ! He loves me. 580 

Const. He shall. 

^een. You, step inside my inmost heart ! 

573 Taller. A, And taller, since yourself . A, for you. 



226 Kin a Balcony 

Give me your own heart : let us have one heart ! 
I '11 come to you for counsel ; " this he says, 
" This he does ; what should this amount to, 

pray ? 
" Beseech you, change it into current coin ! 585 
'' Is that worth kisses ? Shall I please him 

there ? " 
And then we '11 speak in turn of you — what 

else ? 
Your love, according to your beauty's worth. 
For you shall have some noble love, all gold : 
Whom choose you ? we will get him at your 

choice. 590 

— Constance, I leave you. Just a minute since, 
I felt as I must die or be alone 
Breathing my soul into an ear like yours : 
Now, I would face the world with my new life, 
Wear my new crown. I '11 walk around the 

rooms, 595 

And then come back and tell you how it feels. 
How soon a smile of God can change the world ! 
How we are made for happiness — how work 
Grows play, adversity a winning fight ! 
True, I have lost so many years : what then ? 600 
Many remain : God has been very good. 
You, stay here ! 'T is as different from dreams. 
From the mind's cold calm estimate of bliss, 

598 are made. A, are all made. 



3|n a 315alton^ 227 

As these stone statues from the flesh and blood. 
The comfort thou hast caused mankind, God's 

moon ! 605 

She goes out^ leaving Constance. Dance- 
music from within. 

Norhert enters. 

Norb. Well ? we have but one minute and 
one word ! 

Const. I am yours, Norbert ! 

Norb. Yes, mine. 

Const. Not till now! 

You were mine. Now I give myself to you. 

Norb. Constance ? 

Const. Your own ! I know the thriftier 

way 
Of giving — haply, 't is the wiser way. 610 

Meaning to give a treasure, I might dole 
Coin after coin out (each, as that were all. 
With a new largess still at each despair) 
And force you keep in sight the deed, pre- 
serve 
Exhaustless till the end my part and yours, 615 
My giving and your taking ; both our joys 
Dying together. Is it the wiser way ? 
I choose the simpler ; I give all at once. 

She . . . ivithin. In A, Part Third is placed between this and 
Norbert enters. 614 preserve. A, reserve. 



228 3In a llBalconi? 

Know what you have to trust to, trade upon ! 
Use it, abuse it, — anything but think 620 

Hereafter, " Had I known she loved me so, 
" And what my means, I might have thriven with 

it." 
This is your means. I give you all myself. 

Norh. I take you and thank God. 

Const. Look on through years ! 

We cannot kiss, a second day like this ; 625 

Else were this earth no earth. 

Norb, With this day's heat 

We shall go on through years of cold. 

Const, So, best ! 

— I try to see those years — I think I see. 
You walk quick and new warmth comes ; you 

look back 
And lay all to the first glow — not sit down 630 
Forever brooding on a day like this 
While seeing embers whiten and love die. 
Yes, love lives best in its effect ; and mine. 
Full in its own life, yearns to live in yours. 

Norb, Just so. I take and know you all at 
once. 635 

Your soul is disengaged so easily. 
Your face is there, I know you ; give me time. 
Let me be proud and think you shall know me. 
My soul is slower : in a life I roll 

620 think. A, say. 632 %eeing embers. A, seeing the embers. 



31n a ffialcon^ 229 

The minute out whereto you condense yours — 640 

The whole slow circle round you I must move, 

To be just you. I look to a long life 

To decompose this minute, prove its worth. 

'T is the sparks' long succession one by one 

Shall show you, in the end, what fire was crammed 645 

In that mere stone you struck : how could you 

know. 
If it lay ever unproved in your sight, 
As now my heart lies ? your own warmth would 

hide 
Its coldness, were it cold. 

Const. But how prove, how ? 

Norb, Prove in my life, you ask ? 

Const. Quick, Norbert — how ? 650 

Norb. That 's easy told. I count life just a 
stuff 
To try the soul's strength on, educe the man. 
Who keeps one end in view makes all things 

serve. 
As with the body — he who hurls a lance 
Or heaps up stone on stone, shows strength alike : 655 
So must I seize and task all means to prove 
And show this soul of mine, you crown as yours, 
And justify us both. 

Const. Could you write books, 

640 IV hereto. A, in which. 646 how could you knoiv. 
A, you could not know. 656 tnust I. A, I will. task. A, use. 



230 Kin a Balcon? 

Paint pictures ! One sits down in poverty 
And writes or paints, with pity for the rich. 660 
Norh. And loves one's painting and one's writ- 
ing, then, 
And not one's mistress ! All is best, believe. 
And we best as no other than we are. 
We live, and they experiment on life — 
Those poets, painters, all who stand aloof 665 

To overlook the farther. Let us be 
The thing they look at ! I might take your face 
And write of it and paint it — to what end ? 
For whom ? what pale dictatress in the air 
Feeds, smiling sadly, her fine ghost-like form 670 
With earth's real blood and breath, the beaute- 
ous life 
She makes despised for ever ? You are mine. 
Made for me, not for others in the world. 
Nor yet for that which I should call my art. 
The cold calm power to see how fair you look. 675 
I come to you ; I leave you not, to write 
Or paint. You are, I am : let Rubens there 
Paint us ! 

Const, So, best ! 

Norb. I understand your soul. 

You live, and rightly sympathize with life. 
With action, power, success. This way is 

straight ; 680 

661 then. A, too. 667 your face. A, that face. 



I 



3|n a JlBalconi? 231 

And time were short beside, to let me change 
The craft my childhood learnt : my craft shall 

serve. 
Men set me here to subjugate, enclose, 
Manure their barren lives, and force thence fruit 
First for themselves, and afterward for me 685 

In the due tithe ; the task of some one soul. 
Through ways of work appointed by the world. 
I am not bid create — men see no star 
Transfiguring my brow to warrant that — 
But find and bind and bring to bear their wills. 690 
So I began : to-night sees how I end. 
What if it see, too, power's first outbreak here 
Amid the warmth, surprise and sympathy. 
And instincts of the heart that teach the head ? 
What if the people have discerned at length 695 
The dawn of the next nature, novel brain 
Whose will they venture in the place of theirs. 
Whose work, they trust, shall find them as novel 

ways 
To untried heights which yet he only sees ? 
I felt it when you kissed me. See this Queen, 700 

681 time. A, days. 684 thence. A, the. 687 Through. 
A, By. theivorld. A, themselves. (i%% men. A, they. 6^0 But 
find » . . ivil/s. A, But hind in one and carry out their wills. 

692 poiver^s. A, my. 695 at length. A, in me. 696 no'vel 
brain. A, the new man. 698-699 TV hose ivork . . . heights, 
A reads : 

And whom they trust to find them out new ways 
To the new heights. 



232 3ln a Balconi? 

This people — in our phrase, this mass^of men — 

See how the mass lies passive to my hand 

Now that my hand is plastic, with you by 

To make the muscles iron ! Oh, an end 

Shall crown this issue as this crowns the first ! 705 

My will be on this people ! then, the strain. 

The grappling of the potter with his clay. 

The long uncertain struggle, — the success 

And consummation of the spirit-work. 

Some vase shaped to the curl of the god's lip, 710 

While rounded fair for human sense to see 

The Graces in a dance men recognize 

With turbulent applause and laughs of heart ! 

So triumph ever shall renew itself; 

Ever shall end in efforts higher yet, ^,^ 

Ever begin ... 

Const I ever helping ? 

Norb. Thus ! 

As he embraces her^ the ^ueen enters. 

Const. Hist, madam ! So have I performed my 
part. 
You see your gratitude's true decency, 
Norbert ? A little slow in seeing it ! 

703 iVbw that. A, And how. ^ith you. A, and you. 
709-710 And consummation . . . vase. A reads : 

In that uprising of the spirit-work 
The vase, etc. 

711 human sense. A, lower men. 712 men. A, they. 
'J I ^ shall. A, to. 'J 16 begin. A, begun, 'ji'j ha've I. A, I 
have. 



3fln a llBalconp 233 

Begin, to end the sooner ! What 's a kiss ? 720 

Norh. Constance? 

Const, Why, must I teach it you again ? 

You want a witness to your dulness, sir ? 
What was I saying these ten minutes long ? 
Then I repeat — when some young handsome 

man 
Like you has acted out a part like yours, 7^5 

Is pleased to fall in love with one beyond, 
So very far beyond him, as he says — 
So hopelessly in love that but to speak 
Would prove him mad, — he thinks judiciously. 
And makes some insignificant good soul, 730 

Like me, his friend, adviser, confidant. 
And very stalking-horse to cover him 
In following after what he dares not face. 
When his end 's gained — (sir, do you under- 
stand ?) 
When she, he dares not face, has loved him first, 735 
— May I not say so, madam ? — tops his hope, 
And overpasses so his wildest dream. 
With glad consent of all, and most of her 
The confidant who brought the same about — 
Why, in the moment when such joy explodes, 740 
I do hold that the merest gentleman 
Will not start rudely from the stalking-horse, 

733 At the end of this line A has a dash, which would seem to 
be correct. 741 hold. A, say. 



234 3fitt a ilBalton^ 

Dismiss it with a " There, enough of you ! " 
Forget it, show his back unmannerly : 
But like a liberal heart will rather turn 745 

And say, " A tingling time of hope was ours ; 
" Betwixt the fears and falterings, we two lived 
" A chanceful time in waiting for the prize : 
" The confidant, the Constance, served not ill. 
" And though I shall forget her in due time, 750 
" Her use being answered now, as reason bids, 
'^ Nay as herself bids from her heart of hearts, - — 
" Still, she has rights, the first thanks go to her, 
'' The first good praise goes to the prosperous 

tool, 
" And the first — which is the last — rewarding 

KISS. fjcc 

Norh. Constance, it is a dream — ah, see, you 
smile ! 

Const, So, now his part being properly per- 
formed, 
Madam, I turn to you and finish mine 
As duly ; I do justice in my turn. 
Yes, madam, he has loved you — long and well ; 760 
He could not hope to tell you so — 't was I 
Who served to prove your soul accessible, 
I led his thoughts on, drew them to their place 
When they had wandered else into despair, 

755 reivarding. A, thankful. 

764 When they. A, When oft they. ehe. A, out. 



31n a llBalconi? 235 

And kept love constant toward its natural aim. 765 
Enough, my part is played ; you stoop half- 
way 
And meet us royally and spare our fears : 
'T is like yourself. He thanks you, so do I. 
Take him — with my full heart ! my work is 

praised 
By what comes of it. Be you happy, both ! 770 
Yourself — the only one on earth who can — 
Do all for him, much more than a mere heart 
Which though warm is not useful in its warmth 
As the silk vesture of a queen ! fold that 
Around him gently, tenderly. For him — 775 

For him, — he knows his own part ! 

Norh. Have you done ? 

I take the jest at last. Should I speak now ? 
Was yours the wager, Constance, foolish child ; 
Or did you but accept it ? Well — at least 
You lose by it. 

Const. Nay, madam, 't is your turn ! 780 

Restrain him still from speech a little more. 
And make him happier as more confident ! 
Pity him, madam, he is timid yet ! 
Mark, Norbert ! Do not shrink now ! Here I 

yield 
My whole right m you to the Queen, observe f 7^5 
With her go put in practice the great schemes 

782 ai more. A, and more. 



236 3I« a llBalconp 

You teem with, follow the career else closed — 
Be all you cannot be except by her ! 
Behold her ! — Madam, say for pity's sake 
Anything — frankly say you love him ! Else 790 
He '11 not believe it : there 's more earnest in 
His fear than you conceive : I know the man ! 
Norb. I know the woman somewhat, and con- 
fess 
I thought she had jested better : she begins 
To overcharge her part. I gravely wait 79i5 

Your pleasure, madam : where is my reward ? 
^een, Norbert, this wild girl (whom I recog- 
nize 
Scarce more than you do, in her fancy-fit. 
Eccentric speech and variable mirth. 
Not very wise perhaps and somewhat bold, 800 
Yet suitable, the whole night's work being 

strange) 
— May still be right : I may do well to speak 
And make authentic what appears a dream 
To even myself. For, what she says, is true : 
Yes, Norbert — what you spoke just now of love, 805 
Devotion, stirred no novel sense in me. 
But justified a warmth felt long before. 
Yes, from the first — I loved you, I shall say : 
Strange ! but I do grow stronger, now 't is said. 
Your courage helps mine : you did well to speak 810 

805 J«5/. A, but. 



3(|n a 515aIcon^ 237 

To-night, the night that crowns your twelve- 
months' toil : 
But still I had not waited to discern 
Your heart so long, believe me ! From the first 
The source of so much zeal was almost plain, 
In absence even of your own words just now 815 
Which hazarded the truth. 'T is very strange. 
But takes a happy ending — in your love 
Which mine meets : be it so ! as you chose me. 
So I choose you. 

Norh, And worthily you choose. 

I will not be unworthy your esteem, 820 

No, madam. I do love you ; I will meet 
Your nature, now I know it. This was well : 
I see, — you dare and you are justified : 
But none had ventured such experiment. 
Less versed than you in nobleness of heart, 825 
Less confident of finding such in me. 
I joy that thus you test me ere you grant 
The dearest richest beauteousest and best 
Of women to my arms : 't is like yourself. 
So — back again into my part's set words — 830 
Devotion to the uttermost is yours, 
But no, you cannot, madam, even you. 
Create in me the love our Constance does. 
Or — something truer to the tragic phrase — 

816 ha%arded. A, opened out. 8i8 choie. A, choose. 

826 inch. A, it. 827 ]oy. A, like. 



238 3f|n a llBalcon? 

Not yon magnolia-bell superb with scent 835 

Invites a certain insect — that's myself — 
But the small eye-flower nearer to the ground. 
I take this lady. 

Const. Stay — not hers, the trap — 

Stay, Norbert — that mistake were worst of all ! 
He is too cunning, madam ! It was I, 840 

I, Norbert, who ... 

Norh. You, was it, Constance ? Then, 

But for the grace of this divinest hour 
Which gives me you, I might not pardon here ! 
I am the Queen's ; she only knows my brain : 
She may experiment upon my heart 845 

And I instruct her too by the result. 
But you, sweet, you who know me, who so long 
Have told my heart-beats over, held my life 
In those white hands of yours, — it is not well ! 

Const. Tush ! I have said it, did I not say it 
all? 850 

The life, for her — the heart-beats, for her sake ! 

Norb. Enough ! my cheek grows red, I think. 
Your test ? 
There 's not the meanest woman in the world, 
Not she I least could love in all the world. 
Whom, did she love me, had love proved itself,855 
I dare insult as you insult me now. 

843 might not. A, should not. 845 upon my heart. A, there- 
fore on my heart. 855 had. A, did. pro'ved. A, prove. 
856 dare. A, dared. 



3|n a Balcony 239 

Constance, I could say, if it must be said, 

" Take back the soul you offer, I keep mine ! " 

But — " Take the soul still quivering on your 

hand, 
'' The soul so offered, which I cannot use, 860 

" And, please you, give it to some playful friend, 
" For — what 's the trifle he requites me with ? " 
I, tempt a woman, to amuse a man, 
That two may mock her heart if it succumb ? 
No : fearing God and standing 'neath his heaven, 865 
I would not dare insult a woman so. 
Were she the meanest woman in the world, 
And he, I cared to please, ten emperors ! 
Const. Norbert ! 

Norb. I love once as I live but once. 

What case is this to think or talk about ? 870 

I love you. Would it mend the case at all 
If such a step as this killed love in me ? 
Your part were done : account to God for it ! 
But mine — could murdered love get up again. 
And kneel to whom you please to designate, 875 
And make you mirth ? It is too horrible. 
You did not know this, Constance ? now you 

know 
That body and soul have each one life, but one : 
And here 's my love, here, living, at your feet. 

861 playful friend. A, friend of mine. 
872 If A, Should, killed. A, kiU. 



240 3In a Balcony 

Const. See the Queen! Norbert — this one 

more last word — 880 

If thus you have taken jest for earnest — thus 
Loved me in earnest . . . 

Norb. Ah, no jest holds here ! 

Where is the laughter in which jests break up, 
And what this horror that grows palpable ? 
Madam — why grasp you thus the balcony ? 885 
Have I done ill ? Have I not spoken truth ? 
How could I other ? Was it not your test, 
To try me, what my love for Constance meant ? 
Madam, your royal soul itself approves. 
The first, that I should choose thus ! so one 

takes 890 

A beggar, — asks him, what would buy his 

child? 
And then approves the expected laugh of scorn 
Returned as something noble from the rags. 
Speak, Constance, I 'm the beggar ! Ha, what 's 

this ? 
You two glare each at each like panthers now. 895 
Constance, the world fades ; only you stand 

there ! 
You did not, in to-night's wild whirl of things. 
Sell me — your soul of souls, for any price ? 
No — no — 't is easy to believe in you ! 
Was it your love's mad trial to o'ertop 900 

886 truth. A, the truth. 888 what. A, and what. 



31n a ilBalcon^ 241 

Mine by this vain self-sacrifice ? well, still — 
Though I might curse, I love you. I am love 
And cannot change : love's self is at your feet ! 

The ^ueen goes out. 

Const, Feel my heart ; let it die against your 
own ! 

Norh. Against my own. Explain not : let this 
be ! 905 

This is life's height. 

Const, Yours, yours, yours ! 

Norh. You and I — 

Why care by what meanders we are here 
r the centre of the labyrinth ? Men have died 
Trying to find this place, which we have found. 

Const, J'ound, found ! 

Norb, Sweet, never fear what she can do ! 910 
We are past harm now. 

Const, On the breast of God. 

I thought of men — as if you were a man. 
Tempting him with a crown ! 

Norb, This must end here : 

It is too perfect. 

Const, There 's the music stopped. 

What measured heavy tread ? It is one blaze 915 
About me and within me. 

Norb, Oh, some death 

902 might. A, should. 908 F the. A, In the, 

909 place. A, place out. 



242 3ln a llBalcon^ 

Will run its sudden finger round this spark 
And sever us from the rest ! 

Const. And so do well. 

Now the doors open. 

Norb. 'Tis the guard comes. 

Const. Kiss ! 



^oW to 3^n 31 25altonp 

For the meaning of single 'words see the Glossary, 

In a Balcony was written at Bagni di Lucca in the summer of 
1853, and revised during the following winter at Rome. It was 
published in Men and Women in 1855. It was produced by the 
London Browning Society in 1884, at Prince's Hall. Mr. Fred- 
rick Wedmore commented on the performance in the Academy 
for Dec. 6 : ^^ In a Balcony^ on the stage as in the study, is for 
the few, not for the many.'* It has been privately given by the 
Boston Browning Society, and was brought out in New York and 
Boston by Mrs. Le Moyne in 1901. 

200, 25. Takes part . . . here. Thinks of his interest 
against this woman myself. 

201, 39-40. You love . . . vain. It is love of the world 
that makes you care for the formal, outward acknowledgment of 
our love ; whereas my love asks further concealment. If you love 
me as well as you do the world, I shall not ask in vain. 

201, 50. Now take this rose. It is no slight drawback 
to In a Balcony as an acting play that the exposition of the situa- 
tion hardly begins before this point. 

202, 62. your , . . heaven. It is the moment when the stars 
are absolutely favorable to you. A figure borrowed from astrology. 

203, 100. You told the Queen you served her for 
herself. So completely does the logic of Constance rest upon 
this statement that one is tempted to think it strange Norbert lets 
it go unchallenged, or, if he accepts it, that both he and Constance 
so completely ignore it later. 

208, 205-207. The V70rld . . . traps. These lines have 
been interpreted by some to mean that Constance was the mistress 
of Norbert. They are certainly open to that construction, but it 
does not in the least seem necessary to put it upon them. Brown- 
ing was often intense in phrasing, and both the nature of Norbert 



244 #oteg 

and the relations of the lovers throughout the play seem to contra- 
dict the supposition that their passion had led them so far. See 
p. 2IO, 11. 232-233, and p. 228, 11. 625-627. 

209, 223. let my low ground shame their high ! 
Because my common, natural motive will produce effects greater 
than follow from their grandiose ambitions. 

216, 371. The happier you I Here, and throughout the 
interview, Browning with much skill shows how the preoccupation 
of the Queen's mind makes her so interpret the broken exclamations 
of Constance as to miss completely the clue to the situation. 

218-219, 421-424. There have . . . soul. The bold- 
ness of this passage is characteristically Browningesque. It is im- 
portant dramatically in that it goes far to justify the fear which 
Constance had of the Queen. Constance might not understand the 
strenuousness of passion of which her cousin was capable, but being 
a woman she felt instinctively the force of the revengeful jealousy 
of which the Queen was capable. 

227, 608. Now I give myself to you. As has been said 
in the Introduction this is one of the crucial lines of the drama. 

229-230, 650-660. Quick, Norbert . . . the rich. 
This might be a groping on the part of Constance after something 
which would satisfy the vigorous nature of Norbert if he lost his hold 
on the reins of government. If he were but an artist he might be 
content even in obscurity and poverty. Norbert answers uncon- 
sciously that this is impossible. She gives up the hope and acqui- 
esces in the simple but pregnant words, " So, best ! *' It is more 
consistent with her character to understand it as her means of satis- 
fying herself that she is right in her belief that his life would be 
unsatisfied if his high ambitions were balked. 

240, 895. You two . . , now. This scene is really of 
tremendous dramatic intensity, as those who saw the performance 
given under the auspices of the Boston Browning Society, or the 
perhaps less satisfactory performance of Mrs. Le Moyne and her 
company, can abundantly testify. Mr. F. J. Furnivall has given it 
as his opinion: "The Queen's part seems to me the intensest in 
Browning's dramatic work." 

242, 919. 'T is the guard comes. See Introduction, 

p. XXX. 



a ^oul'jsj CmgeD^ 



PERSONS. 

# 

LuiTOLFO and Eulalia, betrothed lo'vers. 
Chiappino, their friend. 
Ogniben, the Pope'' s Legate. 
Citizens of Faenza. 



Time, 15 — . Place, Taenia. 



Persons. Not in A. Instead, the note as to the meaning of Bel/s 
and Pomegranates (see Notes to A Sou/^s Tragedy y page 296) 
faced page i of the play. 



ACT FIRST, BEING WHAT WAS CALLED THE 
POETRY OF CHIAPPINO'S LIFE : AND ACT 



1846. 



ACT I. 

Scene. — Inside Luitolfo's house. 

Chiappino^ Eulalta, 

Eulalta, What is it keeps Luitolfo ? Night 's 
fast falling, 
And 't was scarce sunset . . . had the ave-bell 
Sounded before he sought the Provost^s house ? 
I think not : all he had to say would take 
Few minutes, such a very few, to say ! 
How do you think, Chiappino ? If our lord 
The Provost were less friendly to your friend 
Than everybody here professes him, 

j^ct . . . Prose. In A these words stand as here, but in the 
1849 ed. and thereafter they are on the half-title. 

Act First. A, Part First. Act Second. A, Part Second. 

Act I. A, Part I. Scene . , . Eulalia. A omits scene, read- 
ing : Inside Luitolfo' s house at Faenza. Chiappino, Eulalia. 



248 a ^ouVe ^ragea^ [act i. 

I should begin to tremble — should not you ? 
Why are you silent when so many times lo 

I turn and speak to you ? 

Chiappino. That 's good ! 

Eula. You laugh ! 

Chiap. Yes. I had fancied nothing that bears 
price 
In the whole world was left to call my own ; 
And, may be, felt a little pride thereat. 
Up to a single man's or woman's love, 15 

Down to the right in my own flesh and blood. 
There 's nothing mine, I fancied, — till you 

spoke : 
— Counting, you see, as " nothing " the permis- 
sion 
To study this peculiar lot of mine 
In silence : well, go silence with the rest 20 

Of the world's good ! What can I say, shall 
serve ? 
Eula. This, — lest you, even more than 
needs, embitter 
Our parting : say your wrongs have cast, for 

once, 
A cloud across your spirit ! 

Chiap. How a cloud ? 

Eula. No man nor woman loves you, did you 

say ? 25 

Chiap, My God, were 't not for thee I 



Scene I] ^ ^OUVS tD^tagetip 249 

Eula. Ay, God remains, 

Even did men forsake you. 

Chiap. Oh, not so ! 

Were 't not for God, I mean, what hope of 

truth — 
Speaking truth, hearing truth, would stay with 

man ? 
I, now — the homeless friendless penniless 30 

Proscribed and exiled wretch who speak to 

you, — 
Ought to speak truth, yet could not, for my death, 
(The thing that tempts me most) help speaking 

lies 
About your friendship and Luitolfo's courage 
And all our townsfolk's equanimity — 35 

Through sheer incompetence to rid myself 
Of the old miserable lying trick 
Caught from the liars I have lived with, — God, 
Did I not turn to thee ! It is thy prompting 
I dare to be ashamed of, and thy counsel 40 

Would die along my coward lip, I know. 
But I do turn to thee. This craven tongue. 
These features which refuse the soul its way. 
Reclaim thou ! Give me truth — truth, power 

to speak — 
And after be sole present to approve 45 

The spoken truth ! Or, stay, that spoken truth. 
Who knows but you, too, may approve ? 

47 may. A, might. 



250 ja ^ottl'0 tETrageli^ [act i. 

Eula, Ah, well — 

Keep silence then, Chiappino ! 

Chiap, You would hear, 

You shall now, — why the thing we please to 

style 
My gratitude to you and all your friends 50 

For service done me, is just gratitude 
So much as yours was service : no whit more. 
I was born here, so was Luitolfo ; both 
At one time, much with the same circumstance 
Of rank and wealth ; and both, up to this night 55 
Of parting company, have side by side 
Still fared, he in the sunshine — I, the shadow. 
" Why ? " asks the world. " Because," replies 

the world 
To its complacent self, " these playfellows, 
'' Who took at church the holy-water drop 60 

" Each from the other's finger, and so forth, — 
'' Were of two moods : Luitolfo was the proper 
" Friend-making, everywhere friend-finding soul, 
" Fit for the sunshine, so, it followed him. 
" A happy-tempered bringer of the best 65 

'' Out of the worst ; who bears with what 's past 

cure, 
" And puts so good a face on 't — wisely passive 
" Where action 's fruitless, while he remedies 

49 ijoe please. A, we 're pleased. 

52 no 'whit more. A, and no more. 6 1 Each. A, One. 



Scene L] ^ ^OXXVfS tETrageD^ 25 1 

'' In silence what the foolish rail against ; 

"A man to smooth such natures as parade 70 

*' Of opposition must exasperate ; 

" No general gauntlet-gatherer for the weak 

*' Against the strong, yet over-scrupulous 

'' At lucky junctures ; one who won't forego 

*' The after-battle work of binding wounds, 75 

'' Because, forsooth he 'd have to bring himself 

" To side with wound-inflictors for their 

leave ! " 
— Why do you gaze, nor help me to repeat 
What comes so glibly from the common mouth, 
About Luitolfo and his so-styled friend ? 80 

Eula. Because that friend's sense is ob- 
scured . . . 

Chiap. I thought 

You would be readier with the other half 
Of the world's story, my half! Yet, 'tis true. 
For all the world does say it. Say your worst ! 
True, I thank God, I ever said " you sin," 85 

When a man did sin : if I could not say it, 
I glared it at him ; if I could not glare it, 
I prayed against him ; then my part seemed over. 
God's may begin yet : so it will, I trust. 

Eula. If the world outraged you, did we ? 

76 forsooth. The comma after this word given in A is probably 
inadvertently omitted in the 1888-94 ed. 

77 wound-inflictors. A, their inflictors. 



252 a ^onVfS tEDrageD? [act i. 

Chiap. What 's " me " 90 

That you use well or ill ? It 's man, in me^ 
All your successes are an outrage to, 
You all, whom sunshine follows, as you say ! 
Here 's our Faenza birthplace ; they send here 
A provost from Ravenna : how he rules, 95 

You can at times be eloquent about. 
^' Then, end his rule ! " — " Ah yes, one stroke 

does that ! 
" But patience under wrong works slow and 

sure. 
'' Must violence still bring peace forth ? He, 

beside, 
" Returns so blandly one 's obeisance ! ah — 100 
'' Some latent virtue may be lingering yet, 
'' Some human sympathy which, once excite, 
'' And all the lump were leavened quietly : 
" So, no more talk of striking, for this time ! " 
But I, as one of those he rules, won't bear 105 

These pretty takings-up and layings-down 
Our cause, just as you think occasion suits. 
Enough of earnest, is there ? You '11 play, will 

you ? 
Diversify your tactics, give submission. 
Obsequiousness and flattery a turn, no 

While we die in our misery patient deaths ? 
We all are outraged then, and I the first : 
I, for mankind, resent each shrug and smirk, 



Scene I.] ^ ^Ul'fi^ tEI^ragefi^ 253 

Each beck and bend, each ... all you do and 
are, 

I hate ! 

Eula. We share a common censure, then. 115 

'T is well you have not poor Luitolfo's part 

Nor mine to point out in the wide offence. 
Chiap, Oh, shall I let you so escape me, lady ? 

Come, on your own ground, lady, — from your- 
self, 

(Leaving the people's wrong, which most is 

mine) 120 

What have I got to be so grateful for ? 

These three last fines, no doubt, one on the 
other 

Paid by Luitolfo ? 

Eula. Shame, Chiappino ! 

Chiap, Shame 

Fall presently on who deserves it most ! 

— Which is to see. He paid my fines — my 

friend, 125 

Your prosperous smooth lover presently. 

Then, scarce your wooer, — soon, your hus- 
band : well — 

I loved you. 

Eula. Hold ! 

117 Nor mine. A, Or mine. 

126—127 Tour prosperous . . . ivell. A reads : 
Your prosperous smooth husband presently, 
Then, scarce your wooer — now, your lover : well — 



254 ^ foul's tEPrageD^ [act i. 

Chiap. You knew it, years ago. 

When my voice faltered and my eye grew dim 
Because you gave me your silk mask to hold — 130 
My voice that greatens when there 's need to 

curse 
The people's Provost to their heart's content, 
— My eye, the Provost, who bears all men's 

eyes. 
Banishes now because he cannot bear, — 
You knew . . . but you do your parts — my 

part, 1 : 135 

So be it ! You flourish, I decay : all 's well. 
Eula. I hear this for the first time. 
Chiap. The fault 's there ? 

Then my days spoke not, and my nights of fire 
Were voiceless ? Then the very heart may 

burst. 
Yet all prove nought, because no mincing speech 140 
Tells leisurely that thus it is and thus ? 
Eulalia, truce with toying for this once ! 
A banished fool, who troubles you to-night 
For the last time — why, what 's to fear from 

me ? 
You knew I loved you ! 

Eula. Not so, on my faith ! 145 

You were my now-aiSanced lover's friend — 

129, 133 my eye. A, my eyes. 
137 The fault '5 there? A, Oh, the fault was there? 
[ 144 ivhy. A, Oh. 



Scene I.] ^ g^ottl's tETrageu? 255 

Came in, went out with him, could speak as he. 

All praise your ready parts and pregnant wit; 

See how your words come from you in a crowd ! 

Luitolfo's first to place you o'er himself 150 

In all that challenges respect and love : 

Yet you were silent then, who blame me now. 

I say all this by fascination, sure : 

I, all but wed to one I love, yet listen ! 

It must be, you are wronged, and that the 

wrongs 155 

Luitolfo pities . . . 

Chiap. — You too pity ? Do ! 

But hear first what my wrongs are; so began 
This talk and so shall end this talk. I say, 
Was 't not enough that I must strive (I saw) 
To grow so far familiar with your charms 160 

As next contrive some way to win them — which 
To do, an age seemed far too brief — for, see ! 
We all aspire to heaven ; and there lies heaven 
Above us : go there ! Dare we go ? no, surely ! 
How dare we go without a reverent pause, 165 

A growing less unfit for heaven ? Just so, 
I dared not speak : the greater fool, it seems ! 
Was 't not enough to struggle with such folly. 
But I must have, beside, the very man 
Whose slight free loose and incapacious soul 170 

154 /, all but. A, I am all but. i6i As next. A, As to. 
1 6z brief. A, little. 16^ lies. A, is. 166 Just, A, Even. 



256 g ^onVe tD^rageti^ [act l 

Gave his tongue scope to say whatever he would 

— Must have him load me w^ith his benefits 

— For fortune's fiercest stroke ? 

Eula. Justice to him 

That 's nov7 entreating, at his risk perhaps, 
Justice for you ! Did he once call those acts 175 
Of simple friendship — bounties, benefits ? 
Chiap. No : the straight course had been to 

call them thus. 
Then, I had flung them back, and kept myself 
Unhampered, free as he to win the prize 
We both sought. But " the gold was dross," he 

said: i8q 

" He loved me, and I loved him not : why spurn 
'' A trifle out of superfluity ? 
" He had forgotten he had done as much." 
So had not I ! Henceforth, try as I could 
To take him at his word, there stood by you 185 
My benefactor ; who might speak and laugh 
And urge his nothings, even banter me 
Before you — but my tongue was tied. A 

dream ! 
Let 's wake : your husband . . . how you shake 

at that ! 
Good — my revenge ! 

Eula. Why should I shake ? What forced 190 

Or forces me to be Luitolfo's bride ? 

177 thus. A, so. 181 ivhy spurn. A, to spurn. 



Scene I] ^ ^OUVfi ttTmSetl^ 257 

Chiap. There's my revenge, that nothing 

forces you. 
No gratitude, no liking of the eye 
Nor longing of the heart, but the poor bond 
Of habit — here so many times he came, 195 

So much he spoke, — all these compose the tie 
That pulls you from me. Well, he paid my fines, 
Nor missed a cloak from wardrobe, dish from 

table ; 
He spoke a good word to the Provost here. 
Held me up when my fortunes fell away ^oo 

— It had not looked so well to let me drop — 
Men take pains to preserve a tree-stump, even. 
Whose boughs they played beneath — much 

more a friend. 
But one grows tired of seeing, after the first. 
Pains spent upon impracticable stuflf 205 

Like me. I could not change : you know the 

rest. 
I 've spoke my mind too fully out, by chance. 
This morning to our Provost ; so, ere night 
I leave the city on pain of death. And now 
On my account there 's gallant intercession 210 
Goes forward — that 's so graceful ! — and anon 
He '11 noisily come back ; " the intercession 
" Was made and fails ; all 's over for us both ; 
*' 'T is vain contending ; I would better go.'* 

207 by chance. A, for once. 

214 / ivould better. A, I had better. 



258 ^oxiVs tE^ragea^ [act i. 

And I do go — and straight to you he turns ^'5 

Light of a load ; and ease of that permits 

His visage to repair the natural bland 

QEconomy, sore broken late to suit 

My discontent. Thus, all are pleased — you, 

with him, 
He with himself, and all of you with me 220 

— " Who," say the citizens, " had done far 

better 
" In letting people sleep upon their woes, 
'' If not possessed with talent to relieve them 
'' When once awake ; — but then I had," they '11 

say, 
"Doubtless some unknown compensating pride 225 
'' In what I did ; and as I seem content 
'' With ruining myself, why, so should they be." 
And so they are, and so be with his prize 
The devil, when he gets them speedily ! 
Why does not your Luitolfo come ? I long 230 
To don this cloak and take the Lugo path. 
It seems you never loved me, then ? 

Eula, Chiappino ! 

Chiap, Never ? 

Eula. Never. 

Chiap. That 's sad. Say what I might. 

There was no help from being sure this while 

215 straight. A, so. 217 the natural. A, its natural. 

219 Thus. A, So. 224 aivake. A, they woke. 

234 help from. A, helping. 



Scene I.] ^ ^0\lV& ^U^thl^ 259 

You loved me. Love like mine must have return, 235 
I thought : no river starts but to some sea. 
And had you loved me, I could soon devise 
Some specious reason why you stifled love, 
Some fancied self-denial on your part. 
Which made you choose Luitolfo ; so, excepting 240 
From the wide condemnation of all here. 
One woman. Well, the other dream may break! 
If I knew any heart, as mine loved you. 
Loved me, though in the vilest breast 't were 

lodged, 
I should, I think, be forced to love again : 245 

Else there 's no right nor reason in the world. 

Eula. " If you knew," say you, — but I did 
not know. 
That 's where you 're blind, Chiappino ! — a 

disease 
Which if I may remove, I '11 not repent 
The listening to. You cannot, will not, see 250 
How, place you but in every circumstance 
Of us, you are just now indignant at. 
You 'd be as we. 

Chiap, I should be ? . . . that ; again ! 

I, to my friend, my country and my love. 
Be as Luitolfo and these Faentines ? ^55 

Eula. As we. 

Chiap. Now, I'll say something to re- 

member. 



26o ^ ^oul'0 tEPrageD^ [act i. 

I trust in nature for the stable laws 

Of beauty and utility. — Spring shall plant, 

And Autumn garner to the end of time : 

I trust in God — the right shall be the right *6o 

And other than the wrong, while he endures : 

I trust in my own soul, that can perceive 

The outward and the inward, nature's good 

And God's : so, seeing these men and myself. 

Having a right to speak, thus do I speak. 2,65 

I '11 not curse — God bears with them, well 

may I — 
But I — protest against their claiming me. 
I simply say, if that 's allowable, 
I would not (broadly) do as they have done. 
— God curse this townful of born slaves, bred 

slaves, *7o 

Branded into the blood and bone, slaves ! Curse 
Whoever loves, above his liberty. 
House, land or life ! and , . . 

A knocking without. 
— bless my hero-friend, 
Luitolfo ! 

Eula. How he knocks ! 
Chiap. The peril, lady ! 

" Chiappino, I have run a risk — a risk ! ^75 

" For when I prayed the Provost (he 's my 

friend) 

272 lo'ves. A, loved. 275 / ha've run . . . rhk. A, I have 
run a risk! My God ! 276 For. A, How. 



Scene I. ] ^ ^Ottl'S tEPrageS? 26 1 

" To grant you a week's respite of the sentence 
" That confiscates your goods, exiles yourself, 
" He shrugged his shoulder — I say, shrugged 

it! Yes, 
" And fright of that drove all else from my head. 280 
" Here 's a good purse of scudi : off with you, 
*' Lest of that shrug come what God only knows ! 
" The scudi — friend, they 're trash — no thanks, 

I beg! 
" Take the north gate, — for San Vitale's suburb, 
" Whose double taxes you appealed against, 285 
'^ In discomposure at your ill-success 
'^ Is apt to stone you : there, there — only go ! 
" Beside, Eulalia here looks sleepily. 
" Shake . . . oh, you hurt me, so you squeeze 

my wrist ! " 
— Is it not thus you '11 speak, adventurous 

friend ? 290 

As he opens the door^ Luitolfo rushes in^ 
his garments disordered. 
Eula. Luitolfo ! Blood ? 
Luitolfo, There 's more — and more of it ! 

Eulalia — take the garment ! No — you, friend I 
You take it and the blood from me — you dare ! 
Eula, Oh, who has hurt you ? where 's the 

wound ? 



277 the sentence. A, his sentence. 

278 exiles yourself . A, and exiles you. 



262 a ^ottl'0 dTrageD^ [act l 

Chiap. " Who," say you ? 

The man with many a touch of virtue yet ! 295 
The Provost's friend has proved too frank of 

speech, 
And this comes of it. Miserable hound ! 
This comes of temporizing, as I said ! 
Here 's fruit of your smooth speeches and soft 

looks ! 
Now see my way ! As God lives, I go straight 300 
To the palace and do justice, once for all ^ 

Luit. What says he ? 

Chiap. I '11 do justice on him. 

Luit. Him ? 

Chiap. The Provost. 

Luit. I 've just killed him. 

Eula. Oh, my God ! 

Luit. My friend, they're on my trace; they '11 
have me — now ! 
They're round him, busy with him: soon they '11 

find 305 

He 's past their help, and then they '11 be on me ! 
Chiappino, save Eulalia ! I forget ... 
Were you not bound for . . . 

Chiap. Lugo ? 

Luit. Ah — yes — yes ! 

That was the point I prayed of him to change. 
Well, go — be happy ! Is Eulalia safe ? 3^0 

They 're on me ! 

299 soft. A, fair. 



Scene I.] g ^oxiVs tETrageD^ 263 

Chiap, 'Tis through me they reach you, 

then ! 
Friend, seem the man you are ! Lock arms — 

that 's right ! 
Now tell me what you 've done ; explain how 

you 
That still professed forbearance, still preached 

peace. 
Could bring yourself ... 

Luit. What was peace for, Chiappino ? 3^5 

I tried peace : did that promise, when peace 

failed. 
Strife should not follow ? All my peaceful days 
Were just the prelude to a day like this. 
I cried " You call me ' friend ' : save my true 

friend ! 
" Save him, or lose me ! " 

Chiap, But you never said z^o 

You meant to tell the Provost thus and thus. 
Luit. Why should I say it ? What else did I 

mean ? 
Chiap. Well ? He persisted ? 
Luit. — " Would so order it 

'^ You should not trouble him too soon again." 
I saw a meaning in his eye and lip ; 3^5 

I poured my heart's store of indignant words 
Out on him : then — I know not ! He retorted, 

316 promise. A, say that. 



264 9i ^onVfS tETragetip [act i. 

And I . . . some staff lay there to hand — I 

think 
He bade his servants thrust me out — I struck . . . 
Ah, they come ! Fly you, save yourselves, you 

two ! 330 

The dead back-weight of the beheading axe ! 
The glowing trip-hook, thumbscrews and the 

gadge ! 
Eula. They do come ! Torches in the Place ! 

Farewell, 
Chiappino ! You can work no good to us — 
Much to yourself; believe not, all the world 335 
Must needs be cursed henceforth ! 

Chiap. And you ? 

Eula. I stay. 

Chiap. Ha, ha ! Now, listen ! I am master 

here ! 
This was my coarse disguise ; this paper shows 
My path of flight and place of refuge — see — 
Lugo, Argenta, past San Nicolo, 34^ 

Ferrara, then to Venice, and all 's safe ! 
Put on the cloak ! His people have to fetch 
A compass round about. There 's time enough 
Ere they can reach us, so you straightway make 
For Lugo . . . nay, he hears not ! On with it — 345 
The cloak, Luitolfo, do you hear me ? See — 
He obeys he knows not how. Then, if I 

must — 
Answer me ! Do you know the Lugo gate ? 



Scene I] jS ^OXXVS Wtn^tt^^ 265 

Eu/a. The north-west gate, over the bridge ? 
Luit. I know. 

Chiap, Well, there — you are not frightened ? 
all my route 35© 

Is traced in that : at Venice you escape 
Their power. Eulalia, I am master here ! 

Shouts from without. He pushes out 
Luitolfo^ who complies mechanically. 
In time ! Nay, help me with him — so ! He 's 
gone. 
Eula. What have you done ? On you, per- 
chance, all know 
The Provost's hater, will men's vengeance fall 355 
As our accomplice. 

Chiap. Mere accomplice ? See ! 

Putting on Luitolfo^s vest. 
Now, lady, am I true to my profession, 
Or one of these ? 

Eula. You take Luitolfo's place ? 

Chiap. Die for him. 

Eula. Well done ! 

Shouts increase. 
Chiap. How the people tarry ! 

I can't be silent ; I must speak : or sing — 360 
How natural to sing now ! 

Eula. Hush and pray ! 

We are to die; but even I perceive 

351 you escape. A, you '11 escape. 



266 a S)ourg tETrageU^ [act i. 

'T is not a very hard thing so to die. 

My cousin of the pale-blue tearful eyes, 

Poor Cesca, suffers more from one day's life 365 

With the stern husband ; Tisbe's heart goes forth 

Each evening after that wild son of hers, 

To track his thoughtless footstep through the 

streets : 
How easy for them both to die like this ! 
I am not sure that I could live as they. 370 

Chiap. Here they come, crowds ! They 
pass the gate ? Yes ! — No ! — 
One torch is in the courtyard. Here flock all. 
Eula, At least Luitolfo has escaped. What 

cries ! 
Chiap. If they would drag one to the market- 
place. 
One might speak there ! 

Eula. List ! list ! 

Chiap. They mount the steps. 375 

Enter the Populace. 
I killed the Provost ! 

The Populace {speaking together). 'T was Chiap- 
pino, friends ! 
Our saviour ! The best man at last as first ! 
He who first made us feel what chains we wore. 
He also strikes the blow that shatters them. 
He at last saves us — our best citizen ! 380 

378 feel. A, see. 



Scene I] ^oxiVs tETrageH^ 267 

— Oh, have you only courage to speak now ? 

My eldest son was christened a year since 

" Cino " to keep Chiappino's name in mind — 

Cino, for shortness merely, you observe ! 

The city 's in our hands. The guards are fled. 385 

Do you, the cause of all, come down — come 

up- 
Come out to counsel us, our chief, our king, 
Whate'er rewards you ! Choose your own 

reward ! 
The peril over, its reward begins ! 
Come and harangue us in the market-place ! 390 

Eula. Chiappino ? 

Chiap. Yes — I understand your eyes ! 

You think I should have promptlier disowned 
This deed with its strange unforeseen success, 
In favour of Luitolfo. But the peril. 
So far from ended, hardly seems begun. 395 

To-morrow, rather, when a calm succeeds. 
We easily shall make him full amends : 
And meantime — if we save them as they pray, 
And justify the deed by its effects ? 

Eula. You would, for worlds, you had denied 
at once. 400 

Chiap. I know my own intention, be assured ! 
All 's well. Precede us, fellow-citizens ! 

386 come up. A, come down. 

387 Come out. A, Come forth. 



ACT II. 

Scene. — The market-place, Luitolfo in disguise 
mingling with the Populace assembled opposite 
the Provost's Palace. 

1st Bystander {to Luitolfo^ You, a friend of 
Luitolfo's ? Then, your friend is vanished, — 
in all probability killed on the night that his 
patron the tyrannical Provost was loyally sup- 
pressed here, exactly a month ago, by our illus- ^ 
trious fellow-citizen, thrice-noble saviour, and 
new Provost that is like to be, this very morning, 
— Chiappino ! 

Luitolfo. He the new Provost ? 

2nd Byst. Up those steps will he go, and jo 
beneath yonder pillar stand, while Ogniben, the 
Pope's Legate from Ravenna, reads the new dig- 
nitary's title to the people, according to estab- 
lished custom : for which reason, there is the 
assemblage you inquire about. 15 

Luit. Chiappino — the late Provost's succes- 
sor ? Impossible ! But tell me of that pre- 
sently. What I would know first of all is. 

Act II. A, Part II. Scene. A omits this word. 

9 He. Italicized in A. 14 custom. A, usage. 

16 /ate. A, old. 



Scene I] ^l ^OUrS ^VR^tt^^ 269 

wherefore Luitolfo must so necessarily have 
been killed on that memorable night ? 20 

jrd Byst. You were Luitolfo's friend ? So 
was I. Never, if you will credit me, did there 
exist so poor-spirited a milksop. He, with all 
the opportunities in the world, furnished by 
daily converse with our oppressor, would not 25 
stir a finger to help us : and, when Chiappino 
rose in solitary majesty and . . . how does one 
go on saying ? dealt the godlike blow, — this 
Luitolfo, not unreasonably fearing the indig- 
nation of an aroused and liberated people, fled 30 
precipitately. He may have got trodden to 
death in the press at the south-east gate, when 
the Provost's guards fled through it to Ravenna, 
with their wounded master, — if he did not 
rather hang himself under some hedge. 35 

Luit. Or why not simply have lain perdue 
in some quiet corner, — such as San Cassiano, 
where his estate was, — receiving daily intelli- 
gence from some sure friend, meanwhile, as to 
the turn matters were taking here — how, for 40 
instance, the Provost was not dead, after all, only 
wounded — or, as to-day's news would seem to 
prove, how Chiappina was not Brutus the Elder, 
after all, only the new Provost — and thus Lui- 

26 andy ivhen. A, so when. 
36 perdue. Italicized in A. 



270 ^ foul's tlTrageD^ [act ii. 

tolfo be enabled to watch a favourable opportu- 45 
nity for returning ? Might it not have been so ? 

jrd Byst, Why, he may have taken that care 
of himself, certainly, for he came of a cautious 
stock. I '11 tell you how his uncle, just such 
another gingerly treader on tiptoes with finger on 50 
lip, — how he met his death in the great plague- 
year: dico vohisl Hearing that the seventeenth 
house in a certain street was infected, he calcu- 
lates to pass it in safety by taking plentiful 
breath, say, when he shall arrive at the eleventh 55 
house ; then scouring by, holding that breath, 
till he be got so far on the other side as number 
twenty-three, and thus elude the danger. — And 
so did he begin ; but, as he arrived at thirteen, 
we will say, — thinking to improve on his pre- 60 
caution by putting up a little prayer to St. Ne- 
pomucene of Prague, this exhausted so much of 
his lungs' reserve, that at sixteen it was clean 
spent, — consequently at the fatal seventeen he 
inhaled with a vigour and persistence enough to 65 
suck you any latent venom out of the heart of a 
stone — Ha, ha ! 

Luit. {aside), (If I had not lent that man the 
money he wanted last spring, I should fear this 
bitterness was attributable to me.) Luitolfo is 70 
dead then, one may conclude ? 

jrd Byst. Why, he had a house here, and a 



Scene I.] ^ ^OUl'S tETrageU^ 2 7 1 

woman to whom he was affianced ; and as they 
both pass naturally to the new Provost, his friend 
and heir ... 75 

Luit. Ah, I suspected you of imposing on 
me with your pleasantry ! I know Chiappino 
better. 

1st Byst. (Our friend has the bile ! After all, 
I do not dislike finding somebody vary a little 8o 
this general gape of admiration at Chiappino's 
glorious qualities.) Pray, how much may you 
know of what has taken place in Faenza since 
that memorable night ? 

Luit. It is most to the purpose, that I know 85 
Chiappino to have been by profession a hater of 
that very ofiice of Provost, you now charge him 
with proposing to accept. 

1st Byst. Sir, I '11 tell you. That night was 
indeed memorable. Up we rose, a mass of us, 90 
men, women, children ; out fled the guards with 
the body of the tyrant ; we were to defy the 
world : but, next gray morning, " What will 
Rome say ? " began everybody. You know we 
are governed by Ravenna, which is governed by 95 
Rome. And quietly into the town, by the Ra- 
venna road, comes on muleback a portly per- 
sonage, Ogniben by name, with the quality of 
Pontifical Legate ; trots briskly through the streets 
humming a " Cur fremuere gentes^^ and makes 100 



272 ^ ^OXlVS ® ragPSp [Act II. 

directly for the Provost's Palace — there it faces 
you. " One Messer Chiappino is your leader ? 
I have known three-and-twenty leaders of re- 
volts ! " (laughing gently to himself) — " Give 
me the help of your arm from my mule to yon- 105 
der steps under the pillar-— So ! And now, my 
revolters and good friends, what do you want ? 
The guards burst into Ravenna last night bear- 
ing your wounded Provost ; and, having had a 
little talk with him, I take on myself to come no 
and try appease the disorderliness, before Rome, 
hearing of it, resort to another method : 't is 
I come, and not another, from a certain love I 
confess to, of composing differences. So, do you 
understand, you are about to experience this un-ns 
heard-of tyranny from me, that there shall be no 
heading nor hanging, no confiscation nor exile : 
I insist on your simply pleasing yourselves. And 
now, pray, what does please you ? To live with- 
out any government at all ? Or having decided 120 
for one, to see its minister murdered by the first of 
your body that chooses to find himself wronged, 
or disposed for reverting to first principles and a 
justice anterior to all institutions, — and so will 
you carry matters, that the rest of the world 12^ 
must at length unite and put down such a den 
of wild beasts ? As for vengeance on what has 

112 resort. A, resorts. 



Scene I. ] ^ ^OXXVS ^U^tt^ 273 

just taken place,— once for all, the wounded 
man assures me he cannot conjecture who struck 
him; and this so earnestly, that one may be sure 130 
he knows perfectly well what intimate acquaint- 
ance could find admission to speak with him late 
last evening. I come not for vengeance there- 
fore, but from pure curiosity to hear what you 
will do next." And thus he ran on, on, easily 135 
and volubly, till he seemed to arrive quite natu- 
rally at the praise of law, order, and paternal 
government by somebody from rather a distance. 
All our citizens were in the snare, and about to 
be friends with so congenial an adviser ; but that 140 
Chiappino suddenly stood forth, spoke out in- 
dignantly, and set things right again. 

Luit. Do you see ? I recognize him there ! 

jrd Byst. Ay but, mark you, at the end of 
Chiappino's longest period in praise of a pure 145 
republic, — " And by whom do I desire such a 
government should be administered, perhaps, but 
by one like yourself? " — returns the Legate : 
thereupon speaking for a quarter of an hour to- 
gether, on the natural and only legitimate gov- 150 
ernment by the best and wisest. And it should 
seem there was soon discovered to be no such 
vast discrepancy at bottom between this and 

1 3 2-1 3 3 late last. A, so late that. 135-136 ^«i M«5 . . . 
'volubly. A, And thus ran he on, easily and volubly. 



274 ^ g^ottl'g tE^rageDs C^ct il 

Chiappino's theory, place but each in its proper 
light. " Oh, are you there ? " quoth Chiappino : 155 
" Ay, in that, I agree," returns Chiappino : and 
so on. 

Luit. But did Chiappino cede at once to this ? 

1st Byst, Why, not altogether at once. For 
instance, he said that the difference between him 160 
and all his fellows was, that they seemed all 
wishing to be kings in one or another way, — 
" whereas what right," asked he, " has any man 
to wish to be superior to another ? " — whereat, 
" Ah, sir," answers the Legate, " this is the death 165 
of me, so often as I expect something is really 
going to be revealed to us by you clearer-seers, 
deeper-thinkers — this — that your right-hand 
(to speak by a figure) should be found taking up 
the weapon it displayed so ostentatiously, not 170 
to destroy any dragon in our path, as was pro- 
phesied, but simply to cut off its own fellow left- 
hand : yourself set about attacking yourself. For 
see now ! Here are you who, I make sure, glory 
exceedingly in knowing the noble nature of the 175 
soul, its divine impulses, and so forth ; and with 
such a knowledge you stand, as it were, armed 
to encounter the natural doubts and fears as to 
that same inherent nobility, which are apt to 
waylay us, the weaker ones, in the road of life. 180 \ 

156 Ay. A omits. 179 luhkh are apt. A, that are apt. 1 



Scene I.^ jS ^OUVS tEU^tti^ 275 

And when we look eagerly to see them fall be- 
fore you, lo, round you wheel, only the left-hand 
gets the blow; one proof of the soul's nobility 
destroys simply another proof, quite as good, of 
the same, for you are found delivering an opinion 185 
like this ! Why, what is this perpetual yearning 
to exceed, to subdue, to be better than, and a 
king over, one's fellows, — all that you so dis- 
claim, — but the very tendency yourself are most 
proud of, and under another form, would oppose 190 
to it, — only in a lower stage of manifestation ? 
You don't want to be vulgarly superior to your 
fellows after their poor fashion — to have me 
hold solemnly up your gown's tail, or hand you 
an express of the last importance from the Pope, 195 
with all these bystanders noticing how uncon- 
cerned you look the while : but neither does our 
gaping friend, the burgess yonder, want the other 
kind of kingship, that consists in understanding 
better than his fellows this and similar points of 200 
human nature, nor to roll under his tongue this 
sweeter morsel still, — the feeling that, through 
immense philosophy, he does not feel, he rather 
thinks, above you and me ! " And so chatting, 
they glided off arm-in-arm. 205 

Luit. And the result is . . . 

1st Byst. Why that, a month having gone by, 

i^^ for. A omits. 201 Ais. A, the. 



276 at ^mV& ^rageo^ [act n. 

the indomitable Chiappino, marrying as he will 
Luitolfo's love — at all events succeeding to Lui- 
tolfo's wealth — becomes the first inhabitant of 210 
Faenza, and a proper aspirant to the Provost- 
ship ; which we assemble here to see conferred 
on him this morning. The Legate's Guard to 
clear the way ! He will follow presently. 

Luit. (withdrawing a little), I understand the 21 5 
drift of Eulalia's communications less than ever. 
Yet she surely said, in so many words, that Chi- 
appino was in urgent danger: wherefore, disre- 
garding her injunction to continue in my retreat 
and await the result of — what she called, some 220 
experiment yet in process — I hastened here 
without her leave or knowledge : how could I 
else ? But if this they say be true — if it were 
for such a purpose, she and Chiappino kept me 
away . . . Oh, no, no! I must confront him 225 
and her before I believe this of them. And at 
the word, see ! 

Enter Chiappino and Eulalia. 

Eulalia, We part here, then ? The change in 
your principles would seem to be complete. 

Chiappino. Now, why refuse to see that in my 230 
present course I change no principles, only re- 

210 iveahh. A, goods. 219 injunction. A, injunctions. 
220 aivait. A, wait. 222 how could. A, what could 

223 But if this. A, Yet if what. 



[Scene I. ^ ^onV0 tE^tageJ)^ 277 

adapt them and more adroitly ? I had despaired 
of, what you may call the material instrumen- 
tality of life ; of ever being able to rightly operate 
on mankind through such a deranged machinery 235 
as the existing modes of government : but now, 
if I suddenly discover how to inform these per- 
verted institutions with fresh purpose, bring the 
functionary limbs once more into immediate com- 
munication with, and subjection to, the soul 1 240 
am about to bestow on them — do you see ? 
Why should one desire to invent, as long as it 
remains possible to renew and transform ? When 
all further hope of the old organization shall be 
extinct, then, I grant you, it may be time to try 245 
and create another. 

Eula. And there being discoverable some hope 
yet in the hitherto much-abused old system of 
absolute government by a Provost here, you mean 
to take your time about endeavouring to realize 250 
those visions of a perfect State, we once heard 
of? 

Chiap, Say, I would fain realize my concep- 
tion of a palace, for instance, and that there is, 
abstractedly, but a single way of erecting one 255 
perfectly. Here, in the market-place is my al- 
lotted building-ground ; here I stand without a 
stone to lay, or a labourer to help me, — stand, 
too, during a short day of life, close on which 



278 §)Ottl'0 tE^ragea^ [act n. 

the night comes. On the other hand, circum-260 
stances suddenly offer me (turn and see it !) the 
old Provost's house to experiment upon — ruin- 
ous, if you please, wrongly constructed at the 
beginning, and ready to tumble now. But mate- 
rials abound, a crowd of workmen offer their 265 
services ; here, exists yet a Hall of Audience of 
originally noble proportions, there a Guest-cham- 
ber of symmetrical design enough : and I may 
restore, enlarge, abolish or unite these to heart's 
content. Ought I not make the best of such an 270 
opportunity, rather than continue to gaze dis- 
consolately with folded arms on the flat pave- 
ment here, while the sun goes slowly down, never 
to rise again ? Since you cannot understand this 
nor me, it is better we should part as you desire. 275 

Eula. So, the love breaks away too ! 

Chiap, No, rather my soul's capacity for love 
widens — needs more than one object to content 
it, — and, being better instructed, will not per- 
sist in seeing all the component parts of love in 280 
what is only a single part, — nor in finding that 
so many and so various loves are all united in the 
love of a woman, — manifold uses in one instru- 
ment, as the savage has his sword, staff, sceptre 

270 Ought I not make. A, Ought I not rather make. 

271 rather than. A, than. 274 Since you. A, But you. 
281-283 nor in . . . uses. A, nor in finding the so many and 

so various loves, united in the love of a woman — finding all uses. 
284-285 snvord . . . idol. A, sword, sceptre and idol. 



Scene I.] g g^OUl'g XBtU^tt^ 279 

and idol, all in one club-stick. Love is a very 285 
compound thing. The intellectual part of my 
love I shall give to men, the mighty dead or the 
illustrious living; and determine to call a mere 
sensual instinct by as few fine names as possible. 
What do I lose ? 290 

Eula. Nay, I only think, what do I lose ? and, 
one more word — which shall complete my in- 
struction — does friendship go too ? What of 
Luitolfo, the author of your present prosperity ? 

Chiap, How the author ? 295 

Eula, That blow now called yours . . . 

Chiap. Struck without principle or purpose, as 
by a blind natural operation : yet to which all my 
thought and Hfe directly and advisedly tended. I 
would have struck it, and could not : he would 300 
have done his utmost to avoid striking it, yet did 
so. I dispute his right to that deed of mine — afinal 
action with him, from the first effect of which he 
fled away, — a mere first step with me, on which 
I base a whole mighty superstructure of good to 305 
follow. Could he get good from it ? 

Eula, So we profess, so we perform ! 

Enter Ognihen, Eulalia stands apart, 
Ogniben, I have seen three-and-twenty leaders 

286-288 The intellectual . . . li'ving. A, I shall give the intellec- 
tual part of my love to Men, the mighty dead, or illustrious living. 
291 lose. A, love. 1849, lose. 299 thought. A, thoughts. 



28o ^ ^onVe ^ragea^ [act n. 

of revolts. By your leave, sir ! Perform ? What 
does the lady say of performing ? 310 

Chiap. Only the trite saying, that we must not 
trust profession, only performance. 

Ogni, She '11 not say that, sir, when she knows 
you longer ; you '11 instruct her better. Ever 
judge of men by their professions ! For though 315 
the bright moment of promising is but a moment 
and cannot be prolonged, yet, if sincere in its 
moment's extravagant goodness, why, trust it and 
know the man by it, I say — not by his perform- 
ance ; which is half the world's work, interfere 320 
as the world needs must, with its accidents and 
circumstances : the profession was purely the 
man's own. I judge people by what they might 
be, - — not are, nor will be. 

Chiap. But have there not been found, too, 325 
performing natures, not merely promising ? 

Ogni. Plenty. Little Bindo of our town, for 
instance, promised his friend, great ugly Masac- 
cio, once, " I will repay you ! " — for a favour 
done him. So, when his father came to die, and 330 
Bindo succeeded to the inheritance, he sends 
straightway for Masaccio and shares all with him 
— gives him half the land, half the money, half 
the kegs of wine in the cellar. " Good," say 
you : and it is good. But had little Bindo found 335 
himself possessor of all this wealth some five years 



Scene I] ^ ^Ottl'g ^UQtJi^ 2 8 1 

before — on the happy night when Masaccio 
procured him that interview in the garden with 
his pretty cousin Lisa — instead of being the 
beggar he then was, — I am bound to believe 340 
that in the warm moment of promise he would 
have given away all the wine-kegs and all the 
money and all the land, and only reserved to 
himself some hut on a hill-top hard by, whence 
he might spend his life in looking and seeing his 345 
friend enjoy himself: he meant fully that much, 
but the world interfered. — To our business ! 
Did I understand you just now within-doors ? 
You are not going to marry your old friend's 
love, after all ? 350 

Chiap, I must have a woman that can sym- 
pathize with, and appreciate me, I told you. 

Ogni. Oh, I remember ! you, the greater na- 
ture, needs must have a lesser one ( — avowedly 
lesser — contest with you on that score would 355 
never do) — such a nature must comprehend 
you, as the phrase is, accompany and testify of 
your greatness from point to point onward. Why, 
that were being not merely as great as yourself, 
but greater considerably ! Meantime, might not 360 
the more bounded nature as reasonably count on 
your appreciation of it, rather ? — on your keep- 
ing close by it, so far as you both go together, 



282 ja ^o\xV& tD^rageo^ [act h. 

and then going on by yourself as far as you 
please ? Thus God serves us. 365 

Chiap. And yet a woman that could under- 
stand the whole of me, to whom I could reveal 
alike the strength and the weakness — 

Ogni, Ah, my friend, wish for nothing so 
foolish ! Worship your love, give her the best 370 
of you to see ; be to her like the western lands 
(they bring us such strange news of) to the 
Spanish Court ; send her only your lumps of 
gold, fans of feathers, your spirit-like birds, and 
fruits and gems ! So shall you, what is unseen 375 
of you, be supposed altogether a paradise by her, 
— as these western lands by Spain : though I 
warrant there is filth, red baboons, ugly reptiles 
and squalor enough, which they bring Spain as 
few samples of as possible. Do you want your 380 
mistress to respect your body generally ? Offer 
her your mouth to kiss : don't strip off your boot 
and put your foot to her lips ! You understand 
my humour by this time ? I help men to carry 
out their own principles: if they please to say 385 
two and two make five, I assent, so they will but 
go on and say, four and four make ten. 

Chiap. But these are my private affairs ; what 
I desire you to occupy yourself about, is my 

365 Thus. A, So. 385 principles. A, principle. 
386 so. A, if. 



Scene I.] ^ ^oxxVs tCrageD^ 283 

public appearance presently: for when the peo-390 
pie hear that I am appointed Provost, though 
you and I may thoroughly discern — and easily, 
too — the right principle at bottom of such a 
movement, and how my republicanism remains 
thoroughly unaltered, only takes a form of ex- 395 
pression hitherto commonly judged (and hereto- 
fore by myself) incompatible with its existence, 
— when thus I reconcile myself to an old form of 
government instead of proposing a new one . . . 

Ogni. Why, you must deal with people 400 
broadly. Begin at a distance from this matter 
and say — New truths, old truths ! sirs, there is 
nothing new possible to be revealed to us in 
the moral world; we know all we shall ever 
know : and it is for simply reminding us, by 405 
their various respective expedients, how we do 
know this and the other matter, that men get 
called prophets, poets and the like. A philoso- 
pher's life is spent in discovering that, of the 
half-dozen truths he knew when a child, such 410 
an one is a lie, as the world states it in set terms ; 
and then, after a weary lapse of years, and plenty 
of hard-thinking, it becomes a truth again after 
all, as he happens to newly consider it and view 
it in a different relation with the others : and so 41 5 
he restates it, to the confusion of somebody else 

402 sirs. A, why. 



284 a ^ouVs tD^ragetii? [act h. 

in good time. As for adding to the original stock 
of truths, — impossible ! Thus, you see the ex- 
pression of them is the grand business: — you 
have got a truth in your head about the right 420 
way of governing people, and you took a mode 
of expressing it which now you confess to be im- 
perfect. But what then ? There is truth in false- 
hood, falsehood in truth. No man ever told one 
great truth, that I know, without the help of a 425 
good dozen of lies at least, generally unconscious 
ones. And as when a child comes in breathlessly 
and relates a strange story, you try to conjecture 
from the very falsities in it, what the reality was, 
— do not conclude that he saw nothing in the43o 
sky, because he assuredly did not see a flying 
horse there as he says, — so, through the con- 
tradictory expression, do you see, men should 
look painfully for, and trust to arrive eventually 
at, what you call the true principle at bottom. 435 
Ah, what an answer is there ! to what will it 
not prove applicable ? — " Contradictions ? Of 
course there were," say you ! 

Chiap. Still, the world at large may call it 
inconsistency, and what shall I urge in reply ? 440 

Ogni. Why, look you, when they tax you 
with tergiversation or duplicity, you may answer 

418 Thus. A^Sto. i^zzof. 1888-94 omits. Supplied from A. 
440 urge. A, say. 



Scene I.] g ^ouVe tE^tageJ)^ 285 

— you begin to perceive that, when all's done 
and said, both great parties in the State, the advo- 
cators of change in the present system of things, 445 
and the opponents of it, patriot and anti-patriot, 
are found working together for the common good; 
and that in the midst of their efforts for and 
against its progress, the world somehow or other 
still advances: to which result they contribute 450 
in equal proportions, those who spend their life 

in pushing it onward, as those who give theirs 
to the business of pulling it back. Now, if you 
found the world stand still between the opposite 
forces, and were glad, I should conceive you 1455 
but it steadily advances, you rejoice to see ! By 
the side of such a rejoicer, the man who only 
winks as he keeps cunning and quiet, and says, 
" Let yonder hot-headed fellow fight out my 
battle ! I, for one, shall win in the end by the 460 
blows he gives, and which I ought to be giving" 

— even he seems graceful in his avowal, when 
one considers that he might say, " I shall win 
quite as much by the blows our antagonist gives 
him, blows from which he saves me — I thank 465 
the antagonist equally ! " Moreover, you may 
enlarge on the loss of the edge of party-animosity 
with age and experience . . . 

451 spend. A, spent. 452 gi've. A, gave. 

465 bloivs. A, and. 466-467 may enlarge. A, must enlarge. 



286 g ^onVe tD^ragea^ [act n. 

Chiap. And naturally time must wear off such 
asperities: the bitterest adversaries get to discover 470 
certain points of similarity between each other, 
common sympathies — do they not ? 

Ogni, Ay, had the young David but sat first 
to dine on his cheeses with the Philistine, he 
had soon discovered an abundance of such com- 475 
mon sympathies. He of Gath, it is recorded, 
was born of a father and mother, had brothers 
and sisters like another man, — they, no more 
than the sons of Jesse, were used to eat each 
other. But, for the sake of one broad antipathy 480 
that had existed from the beginning, David slung 
the stone, cut off the giant's head, made a spoil 
of it, and after ate his cheeses alone, with the 
better appetite, for all I can learn. My friend, 
as you, with a quickened eye-sight, go on dis-485 
covering much good on the worse side, remem- 
ber that the same process should proportionably 
magnify and demonstrate to you the much more 
good on the better side ! And when I profess 
no sympathy for the Goliaths of our time, and 490 
you object that a large nature should sympathize 
with every form of intelligence, and see the good 
in it, however limited — I answer, " So I do ; 
but preserve the proportions of my sympathy, 
however finelier or widelier I may extend its 495 

473 sat. A, sate. 



Scene I.] g ^OUVS tl^m^tt^^ 287 

action." I desire to be able, with a quickened 
eye-sight, to descry beauty in corruption where 
others see foulness only ; but I hope I shall also 
continue to see a redoubled beauty in the higher 
forms of matter, where already everybody sees 500 
no foulness at all. I must retain, too, my old 
power of selection, and choice of appropriation, 
to apply to such new gifts ; else they only daz- 
zle instead of enlightening me. God has his 
archangels and consorts with them : though he 505 
made too, and intimately sees what is good in, 
the worm. Observe, I speak only as you pro- 
fess to think and, so, ought to speak : I do jus- 
tice to your own principles, that is all. 

Chiap, But you very well know that the two 510 
parties do, on occasion, assume each other's char- 
acteristics. What more disgusting, for instance, 
than to see how promptly the newly emancipated 
slave will adopt, in his own favour, the very mea- 
sures of precaution, which pressed soreliest on 515 
himself as institutions of the tyranny he has just 
escaped from ? Do the classes, hitherto without 
opinion, get leave to express it ? there follows a 
confederacy immediately, from which — exercise 
your individual right and dissent, and woe be to 520 
you ! 

499-500 higher forms of matter. A, higher forms. 
518 there folloivs. A, there is. 



288 Si ^Ottl'0 tC^rageD? [act ii. 

Ogni. And a journey over the sea to you ! 
That is the generous way. Cry — "Emancipated 
slaves, the first excess, and ofF I go ! " The 
first time a poor devil, who has been bastina-525 
doed steadily his whole life long, finds himself 
let alone and able to legislate, so, begins pet- 
tishly, while he rubs his soles, '' Woe be to 
whoever brings anything in the shape of a stick 
this way ! " — you, rather than give up the very 530 
innocent pleasure of carrying one to switch 
flies with, — you go away, to everybody's sor- 
row. Yet you were quite reconciled to stay- 
ing at home while the governors used to pass, 
every now and then, some such edict as "Let 535 
no man indulge in owning a stick which is 
not thick enough to chastise our slaves, if need 
require ! " Well, there are preordained hier- 
archies among us, and a profane vulgar sub- 
jected to a different law altogether; yet I am 540 
rather sorry you should see it so clearly : for, do 
you know what is to — all but save you at the 
Day of Judgment, all you men of genius ? It is 
this : that, while you generally began by pulling 
down God, and went on to the end of your life, 545 
in one effort at setting up your own genius in 
his place, — still, the last, bitterest concession 
wrung with the utmost unwillingness from the 

523 Cry. A, Say. 



Scene I.] ^ ^oxiVs tETrageD^ 289 

experience of the very loftiest of you, was in- 
variably — would one think it? — that the rest 550 
of mankind, down to the lowest of the mass, 
stood not, nor ever could stand, just on a level 
and equality with yourselves. That will be a 
point in the favour of all such, I hope and be- 
lieve. 555 

Chiap. Why, men of genius are usually 
charged, I think, with doing just the reverse ; 
and at once acknowledging the natural inequal- 
ity of mankind, by themselves participating in 
the universal craving after, and deference to, the 560 
civil distinctions which represent it. You won- 
der they pay such undue respect to titles and 
badges of superior rank. 

Ogni. Not I (always on your own ground 
and showing, be it noted !) Who doubts that, 565 
with a weapon to brandish, a man is the more 
formidable ? Titles and badges are exercised as 
such a weapon, to which you and I look up 
wistfully. We could pin lions with it moreover, 
while in its present owner's hands it hardly prods 570 
rats. Nay, better than a mere weapon of easy 
mastery and obvious use, it is a mysterious di- 
vining rod that may serve us in undreamed-of 
ways. Beauty, strength, intellect — men often 
have none of these, and yet conceive pretty ac-575 

552 stood. A, was. stand. A, be. 573 us. A, you. 



290 ^ ^onV& tD^ragea^ [act ii. 

curately what kind of advantages they would 
bestow on the possessor. We know at least 
what it is we make up our mind to forego, and 
so can apply the fittest substitute in our power. 
Wanting beauty, we cultivate good humour 5580 
missing wit, we get riches : but the mystic un- 
imaginable operation of that gold collar and 
string of Latin names which suddenly turned 
poor stupid little peevish Cecco of our town 
into natural lord of the best of us — a Duke, 585 
he is now — there indeed is a virtue to be 
reverenced ! 

Chiap. Ay, by the vulgar: not by Messere 
Stiatta the poet, who pays more assiduous court 
to him than anybody. 590 

Ogni. What else should Stiatta pay court to ? 
He has talent, not honour and riches : men natu- 
rally covet what they have not. 

Chiap, No, or Cecco would covet talent, 
which he has not, whereas he covets more 595 
riches, of which he has plenty, already. 

Ogni. Because a purse added to a purse makes 
the holder twice as rich : but just such another 
talent as Stiatta's, added to what he now pos- 
sesses, what would that profit him ? Give the 600 
talent a purse indeed, to do something with ! 

577-585 We . . . of us. A has you for ive and us, your for 
our throughout. 



Scene L] ^ ^OUl'fl? tETrageD^ 29 1 

But lo, how we keep the good people waiting ! 
I only desired to do justice to the noble senti- 
ments which animate you and which you are 
too modest to duly enforce. Come, to our main 605 
business: shall we ascend the steps ? I am go- 
ing to propose you for Provost to the people ; 
they know your antecedents, and will accept 
you with a joyful unanimity : whereon I con- 
firm their choice. Rouse up ! Are you nerving 610 
yourself to an effort ? Beware the disaster of 
Messere Stiatta we were talking of ! who, de- 
termining to keep an equal mind and constant 
face on whatever might be the fortune of his 
last new poem with our townsmen, heard too 615 
plainly " hiss, hiss, hiss," increase every mo- 
ment. Till at last the man fell senseless : not 
perceiving that the portentous sounds had all 
the while been issuing from between his own 
nobly clenched teeth, and nostrils narrowed by 620 
resolve. 

Chiap. Do you begin to throw ofF the mask ? 
— to jest with me, having got me effectually 
into your trap ? 

Ogni. Where is the trap, my friend ? You 625 
hear what I engage to do, for my part : you, for 
yours, have only to fulfil your promise made just 
now within doors, of professing unlimited obedi- 

610 Are you. A, You are. 615 poem. A, tragedy. 



292 31 foul's tETtageD? [act h. 

ence to Rome's authority in my person. And I 
shall authorize no more than the simple re-estab- 630 
lishment of the Provostship and the conferment 
of its privileges upon yourself: the only novel 
stipulation being a birth of the peculiar circum- 
stances of the time. 

Chiap. And that stipulation ? 635 

Ogni, Just the obvious one — that in the event 
of the discovery of the actual assailant of the late 
Provost . . . 

Chiap. Ha! 

Ogni, Why, he shall suffer the proper penalty, 640 
of course ; what did you expect ? 

Chiap. Who heard of this ? 

Ogni. Rather, who needed to hear of this ? 

Chiap. Can it be, the popular rumour never 
reached you ... 645 

Ogni. Many more such rumours reach me, 
friend, than I choose to receive ; those which 
wait longest have best chance. Has the present 
one sufficiently waited ? Now is its time for 
entry with effect. See the good people crowding 650 
about yonder palace-steps — which we may not 
have to ascend, after all. My good friends ! (nay, 
two or three of you will answer every purpose) 
— who was it fell upon and proved nearly the 
death of your late Provost? His successor de-655 

636 yust. A, Oh. 650 crowding. A, crowded. 



Scene I] ^ ^Ottl'0 tEPrageU? 293 

sires to hear, that his day of inauguration may 
be graced by the act of prompt bare justice we 
all anticipate. Who dealt the blow that night, 
does anybody know ? 

Luit, (coming forward), I ! 660 

All. Luitolfo! 

Luit, I avow the deed, justify and approve it, 
and stand forth now, to relieve my friend of an 
unearned responsibility. Having taken thought, 
I am grown stronger: I shall shrink from no- 665 
thing that awaits me. Nay, Chiappino — we 
are friends still : I dare say there is some proof 
of your superior nature in this starting aside, 
strange as it seemed at first. So, they tell me, 
my horse is of the right stock, because a shadow 670 
in the path frightens him into a frenzy, makes 
him dash my brains out. I understand only the 
dull mule's way of standing stockishly, plodding 
soberly, suffering on occasion a blow or two with 
due patience. 675 

Eula, I was determined to justify my choice, 
Chiappino, — to let Luitolfo's nature vindicate 
itself. Henceforth we are undivided, whatever 
be our fortune. 

Ogni. Now, in these last ten minutes of 680 
silence, what have I been doing, deem you ? 
Putting the finishing stroke to a homily of mine, 

669 seemed. A, seems. 



294 9i foul's tETrageJ)^ [act ii. 

I have long taken thought to perfect, on the 
text, " Let whoso thinketh he standeth, take 
heed lest he fall." To your house, Luitolfo ! 685 
Still silent, my patriotic friend ? Well, that is 
a good sign however. And you will go aside for 
a time ? That is better still. I understand : it 
would be easy for you to die of remorse here on 
the spot and shock us all, but you mean to live 690 
and grow worthy of coming back to us one day. 
There, I will tell every body ; and you only do 
right to believe you must get better as you get 
older. All men do so : they are worst in child- 
hood, improve in manhood, and get ready in old 695 
age for another world. Youth, with its beauty 
and grace, would seem bestowed on us for some 
such reason as to make us partly endurable till 
wc have time for really becoming so of ourselves, 
without their aid ; when they leave us. The 700 
sweetest child we all smile on for his pleasant 
want of the whole world to break up, or suck 
in his mouth, seeing no other good in it — 
would be rudely handled by that world's inhabit- 
ants, if he retained those angelic infantine desires 705 
when he had grown six feet high, black and 
bearded. But, little by little, he sees fit to forego 

690 you mean to li've. A, you will live. 
693 you must get better. A, you will get better. 
697 ivould seem. A, would really seem. 
704 ivou/d he. A, he would be. 



Scene I] ^ &onV& tE^rageD^ 295 

claim after claim on the world, puts up with a 
less and less share of its good as his proper 
portion ; and when the octogenarian asks barely 710 
a sup of gruel and a fire of dry sticks, and thanks 
you as for his full allowance and right in the 
common good of life, — hoping nobody may 
murder him, — he who began by asking and 
expecting the whole of us to bow down in wor-715 
ship to him, — why, I say he is advanced, far 
onward, very far, nearly out of sight like our 
friend Chiappino yonder. And now — (ay, 
good-bye to you ! He turns round the north- 
west gate : going to Lugo again ? Good-bye !) 720 
— and now give thanks to God, the keys of the 
Provost's palace to me, and yourselves to profit- 
able meditation at home ! I have known Four- 
and-twenty leaders of revolts. 

711 thanks. A, will thank. 



Il^ote^ to a ^0111*0 Ctagetit 

For the meaning of single ivords see the Glossary, 

No. VIII of Bells and Pomegranates^ published in April, 1846, 
contained Luria and -^ SouP s Tragedy. The number bore the 
dedication, afterward made the dedication of the former play alone : 
** I dedicate these last attempts for the present at dramatic poetry 
to a great dramatic poet ; * Wishing what I write may be read by 
his light * ; — if a phrase originally addressed, by not the least worthy 
of his contemporaries, to Shakespeare, may be applied here, by 
one whose sole privilege is in a grateful admiration, to Walter 
Savage Landor. Mch. 29, 1846.** 

The phrase " last attempts for the present at dramatic poetry '* 
is of interest both as related to what had gone before and to the 
fact that afterward Browning did not again, except with In a Balcony^ 
attempt the strictly dramatic form. The dramas which had pre- 
ceded these two ** last attempts " show deliberate and painstaking 
effort to achieve stage-effectiveness. In Luria, however, one feels 
that the poet hardly expects that the play will be acted ; and in 
A Soul's Tragedy all thought of stage presentation seems to have 
been frankly abandoned. Yet A Soul's Tragedy was performed 
under the auspices of the London Stage Society on March 1 3 and 
14, 1904. A couple of extracts will be sufficient to show the tone 
of the critics in regard to its effect. 

"Whatever claims to psychology Browning^s A SouPs Tragedy 
may possess, its lack of brightness and lucidity disqualifies it for 
stage exposition. Not the slightest illumination is cast upon it by 
the species of interpretation that is afforded. . . . There is, how- 
ever, satisfaction of a sort in ascertaining how incapable of stage 
treatment are some, at least, of Browning's psychological abstrac- 
tions.*' — The Athenaum. 

" Its poetry and its philosophy do not * carry across the foot- 
lights. ' It is not a drama of action or of the emotions, it is a study 



0ott& 297 

in souls and therefore a study for the fireside, not for the garish 
glare of the footlights. The vacillating Chiappino does not fascinate 
us in the theatre as he does in the book, and Ogniben*s cynicism 
when spoken becomes wearisome. ' ' — TAe Academy and Literature. 

No. VIII of Bells and Pomegranates contained opposite the first 
page of A Soul's Tragedy the following note : — 

** Here ends my first series of * Bells and Pomegranates * : and I 
take the opportunity of explaining in reply to inquiries, that I only 
meant by that title to indicate an endeavour towards something like 
an alternation, or mixture, of music with discoursing, sound with 
sense, poetry with thought ; which looks too ambitious, thus ex- 
pressed, so the symbol was preferred. It is little to the purpose, that 
such is actually one of the most familiar of the many Rabbinical 
(and Patristic) acceptations of the phrase 5 because I confess that, let- 
ting authority alone, I supposed the bare words, in such juxtaposition, 
would sufficiently convey the desired meaning. * Faith and good 
works ' is another fancy, for instance, and perhaps no easier to arrive 
at : yet Giotto placed a pomegranate fruit in the hand of Dante, 
and Rafaelle crowned his Theology (in the Camera del/a Segnatura) 
with blossoms of the same 5 as if the Bellari and Vasari would be sure 
to come after, and explain that it was merely * simbolo delle buone 
opere — // qual Pomo granato fu pero usato nelle vesti del Pontejice 
appresso gli Ebrei.' ' R. B." 

252, 92. All your successes are an outrage to. 

The line is a key-note to the character of Chiappino. His inordi- 
nate vanity and self-love rage against any success that is not his own. 

254, 133-134- My eye . . . bear. The gross egotism of 
Chiappino is so offensive that one wonders how Eulalia and Lui- 
tolfo have been able to have or to preserve any feeling for him other 
than pity for one so morbidly soul-sick. 

258, 230. Your Luitolfo. Having thrown aside his mask, 
Chiappino indulges his spleen by sneeringly referring to Luitolfo as 
**your.** 

262, 303. I *ve just killed him. This is one of the com- 
paratively few speeches in the play which have genuine dramatic 
effectiveness. 

^ "^ symbol of good works — which Pomegranate jvas therefore used in 
the robes of the High Priest among the Hebrews**^ 



298 j|iote0 

264, 332. trip-hook, thumbscrews and the gadge. 

Instruments of torture which might be used in the punishment of 
one who had murdered the Prefect. Trip-hook and gadge 
are apparently terms invented by Browning. They are at least not 
to be found in the dictionaries. 

264, 341. Venice, and all 'S safe. Venice was an inde- 
pendent republic, and there the fugitive would be safe from pursuit. 

265, 351. Is traced in that. The paper, mentioned 
1. 338, which he gives her. 

266, 374-375. If they ♦ . . speak there I It is sub- 

tilely characteristic that at this supreme moment Chiappino, the 
man of words, should flatter his vanity with the thought that he 
might make a most effective harangue before his execution in the 
market-place. 

269,43. Brutus the Elder. Lucius Junius Brutus roused 
the people and expelled the Tarquins from Rome 5 but — in con- 
trast to Chiappino — he did not make himself ruler. 

270, 52. dico vobis. I tell you. 

271-275, 97-205- comes on muleback . . . arm in 

arm. W. L. Courtney, commenting upon Browning's tempta- 
tion to speak in his own person under the guise of one of his char- 
acters, cites this passage, and remarks : — 

** Let us take another instance, how a bystander — one of the 
populace, be it remembered — is able to describe Ogniben's demeanor 
and language . . . ' Roll under his tongue this sweeter morsel 
still ! ' Fancy a bystander, one of the populace, calling such talk as 
this ' chatting ' ! *' — Studies Neiv and Old. 

All this talk of the bystanders, while it explains clearly the situa- 
tion, is impossible from the point of view of dramatic propriety. It 
is an excellent illustration of Browning's habit of neglecting acci- 
dental details so long as the essential thought or emotion is clearly 
brought out. 

271, 100. Cur fremuere gentes. Why do the people rage ? 
Ps. ii. 

276, 218. urgent danger. Luitolfo understands the mes- 
sage as meaning bodily danger, whereas Eulalia had meant moral 
peril. 

279, 307. So . . . perform. Eulalia in this act is made a 



iliotesf 299 

mere puppet for working out the idea of the poet. Were she as 
real as in the first act, it might be possible to have doubts in regard 
to the motives which lead her to play double with Chiappino while 
keeping Luitolfo informed of the course of events and ultimately 
sending for him. Her declaration, 11. 674-77, of her reason does not 
have a ring entirely convincing. Taken as a simple algebraic quan- 
tity used in solving the equation, the bringing out of Chiappino' s 
genuine self, — she serves her use well. 

282, 371. western lands. America, in the sixteenth 
century newly discovered. 

285, 444. advocators of change. The meaning of the 
word in the fifteenth century was intercessor, patron. Dr. Rolfe 
notes that the obvious meaning here is Browning's innovation. 

286, 474. dine . . . Philistine. David's father, Jesse, sent 
him with ten cheeses to the captain of the thousand in which 
were his oldest three brothers. He found the Philistine of Gath, 
Goliath, challenging the Israelites. Ultimately he was allowed to 
fight the giant, whom he slew, i Samuel xvii, 12—54, 

288, 539. profane vulgar. The expression is that of Hor- 
ace, Ode iii. 

294, 684-685. ** Let . . . fall.*' I Corinthians x, 12. 

295, 717-718. nearly out of sight like our friend 
Chiappino. ** The vital importance of critical moments is Brown- 
ing's favorite theme. The character must be prepared by long, 
patient training for the * stress and strain ' of an unforeseen and half 
recognized occasion. The power to judge of the real ethical value 
of any given act is strengthened if not positively created by years of 
careful study of the relations of conduct and of people. This ob- 
servation must be unselfish as well as keen. No better example can 
be found of all these general considerations than the character of 
Chiappino. . . . He is equal to one lofty choice. He takes upon 
himself the act of Luitolfo when he supposes to do so is to meet 
death in one of its most hideous forms. He bears the test of tor- 
turing adversity. But at the next step he falters. The importance 
of truth — where an instant before a lie had been the truest hero- 
ism — he does not see. . . . Chiappino slinks out of sight, the 
victim of his own treachery, and we realize that for him there is no 
hope." — Professor Rolfe and Miss Hersey, 



The place of publication is London unless otherwise indicated. 



I. TEXTS. 



This list is made with reference not to Browning's work in gen- 
eral^ but simply to those plays included in this 'volume. It is not 
exhaustive^ but includes the authorized editions and the best 
reprints. 

1843. Bells and Pomegranates. | No. V. | A Blot in the 
* Scutcheon. | A Tragedy, | in Three Acts. | By Robert Brown- 
ing, I Author of "Paracelsus.** | Edward Moxon, Dover Street, | 
Mdcccxliii. 

1844. Bells and Pomegranates. | N? VI. — Colombe's 
Birthday. | A Play, | In Five Acts. | By Robert Browning, | 
Author of "Paracelsus.** | [Between parallel lines follows the 
quotation from Hanmer given on p. 82.] London : | Edward 
Moxon, Dover St. | Mdcccxliv. 

1846. Bells and Pomegranates. | No. VIII. and last. I 
LuRiA I and | A Soul*s Tragedy. | By Robert Browning, | 
Author of " Paracelsus.** | London : | Edward Moxon, Dover 
St. I Mdcccxlvi. 

1849. Poems by Robert Browning. 2 vols. Chapman & 
Hall. Colombe's Birthday, vol. I. j A Blot in the * Scutcheon 
and A Soul*s Tragedy, vol. II. 

1855. Men and Women. 2 vols. Chapman & Hall. In 
a Balcony, vol. II. 

1863, The Poetical Works or Robert Browning. 3 vols. 
Chapman & Hall. Third edition. All the dramas are in the 
second volume : Tragedies and Other Plays. 1865 reprinted. 
Fourth edition. 

1868. The Poetical Works of Robert Browning, M. A., 
6 vols. Smith, Elder & Co. A Blot in the * Scutcheon and 



llBibliograp^l? 301 

Colombe's Birthday, vol. IV. 5 A Soul's Tragedy, vol. V. ; 
In a Balcony, vol. VI. 

1872. Poetical Works. 4 vols. B. Tauchnitz, Leipzig. 
A Soul's Tragedy, vol. I. 5 In a Balcony, vol. II. ; A Blot 
IN THE 'Scutcheon, vol. III. Colombe's Birthday is not in- 
cluded. 

1878. The Poctical Works of Robert Browning. 6 vols. 
Smith, Elder & Co. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon and Colombe's 
Birthday, vol. IV. 5 A Soul's Tragedy, vol. V. ; In a Bal- 
cony, vol. VI. 

1 888-1 894. The Poetical Works of Robert Browning. 
17 vols. Smith, Elder & Co. A Soul's Tragedy, vol. III. ; 
A Blot in the 'Scutcheon and Colombe's Birthday, vol. IV. ; 
In a Balcony, vol. VII. This edition, which began to appear in 
the year of Browning's death, had been revised by the poet : it is, 
therefore, regarded as the definitive edition. 

Most of these English editions ha've been republished in America. 

The most satisfactory American editions are : — 

1887. Poetic and Dramatic Works. 6 vols. Riverside 
edition. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 

1887. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon and other Dramas. By 
Robert Browning. Edited, with notes, by William J. Rolfe, 
Litt. D., and Heloise E. Hersey. Harper & Co., N. Y. Re- 
printed 1893. 

1895. Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works. Cam- 
bridge edition. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 

1896. Poetical Works. 2 vols. Macmillan & Co. , N. Y. 
AH the dramas in vol. I. 

1898. Complete Poetical Works. 12 vols. Camberwell 
edition. Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke. T. Y. Crow- 
ell & Co., N. Y. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, Colombe's 
Birthday, and A Soul's Tragedy, vol. III. ; In a Balcony, 
vol. V. 



302 jlBibltograpl^^ 

II. WORKS. BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
CRITICAL. 

This list, like the preceding, is made with especial reference to 
the plays, the essays cited ha'ving at least noteivorthy passages bear- 
ing upon one or more of the dramas included in this 'volume ,* but 
most of the ivorks gi'ven ha've also a broader range and deal ivith 
Broivning in the 'varied phases of his genius. 

1843. Review of performance of A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, 
The Examiner (London), Feb. 18, 1843. Quoted in the papers 
of the London Browning Society, Part II. 

1848. Review of revival of same play by Phelps, The Athe- 
naum (London), Dec. 2, 1848; The Examiner, Dec. 9. 

1848. Browning's Plays and Poems. James Russell Lowell. 
North American Rc'vieiv, April, 1848 5 vol. LXVI, pp. 357-400. 

1853. Review of performance of Colombe's Birthday, Athe- 
naum. Literary Gazette, and Examiner, all on April 30, 1853. 

1879. Studies in Literature. Edward Dowden, LL. D. 
Two Essays : The Transcendental Mo'vement and Literature and 
Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Broivning. C. K. Paul & Co. 

1885* Is Browning Dramatic? Arthur Symonds. Brown- 
ing Society Papers, Part VII. 

1885. A Handbook to the Works of Robert Browning. 
Mrs. Sutherland Orr. George Bell & Sons. 

1886. An Introduction to the Study of Browning. Ar- 
thur Symonds. Cassell & Co. 

1888. Studies, New and Old. W. L. Courtney. Robert 
Broivning, Writer of Plays. Chapman & Hall. 

1889. The Tragic Motive in Browning's Dramas. Pro- 
fessor C. C. Everett. The Andouer Reuieiv, February. 

1890. Life OF Browning. William Sharp. London, Walter 
Scott 5 New York, A. Lovell & Co. 

1890. Robert Browning : Personalia. Edmund Gosse. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , Boston. 

1 891. Life and Letters of Robert Browning. 2 vols. 



llBibliosrapl)? 303 

Mrs. Sutherland Orr. For Browning's own account of the first 
production of A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, see pp. 169-176, 
178-180. Smith and Elder. 

1 89 1. A GUIDE-BOOK TO THE PoETIC AND DrAMATIC 

Works of Robert Browning. George Willis Cooke. Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 

1891. Victorian Poets. Amy Sharp. Broivning. Me- 
thuen & Co. 

1892. The Browning CycLOP-ffiDiA. E. Berdoe. Swan, 
Sonnenschein & Co. Pp. xiii-xviii contain a list of the pub- 
lications of the London Browning Society from its beginning in 
i88itoi893. 

1895. Corrected Impressions. George Saintsbury. Broiun- 
ing. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. 

1895. The Greater Victorian Poets. Hugh Walker. 
Three essays: Broivning , 18^^—1846 ; Broivning* s Intermediate 
Period, i8jO—l86g ,* Tennyson and Broivning, the Closing Period, 
Swan, Sonnenschein & Co* 

1897. '^^^ Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
2 vols. Edited by F. G. Kenyon. For interesting comments on 
the first presentation of Colombe's Birthday, see II, 112, 115, 
116. Macmillan & Co., N. Y. 

1899. A Philistine View of a Browning Play. Professor 
Lounsbury. The Atlantic Monthly, December. 

1899. The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth 
Barrett Browning, i 845-1 846. 2 vols. For comment on 
A Soul's Tragedy, see I, 26, 467, 470, 5405 II, 13, 34, 
77, 108. Harper & Bros., N. Y. 

1902. The Poetry of Robert Browning. Stopford A, 
Brooke. New York. T. Y. Crowell & Co. 

1904. Robert Browning. (The Temple Biographies). Ed- 
ward Dowden. Chs. iii and iv. The Maker of Plays. J. M. 
Dent and Co. 



<Bln^0atp 



Amelius. An Italian Neo- 
Platonist of the third century. 
C. B, III, i, 71. 

Argenta, About midway be- 
tween Ferrara and Ravenna. 
S. T. I, i, 340. 

ave-bell. This was rung half 
an hour after sunset as the 
signal for repeating an ^'ve 
Maria, S. T. i, i, 2. 

bower. In the sense so com- 
mon in the old ballads, cham- 
ber. B. In S. I, iii, 203. 

Brutus. S. T, II, 43. See note, 
p. 298, on 269, 43, 

cappings. Taking off the cap 
in honor of royalty. C. B. i, i, 
177. 

church-flowers. Flowers 
plucked to adorn the altar, 
and to perish, as the Duchess 
must perish thrown down from 
her estate. C. B. 11, i, 165. 

Cleves. Ancient capital of the 
Duchy of Cleves. It is the 
scene of the legend of Lohen- 
grin and the swan. C. B, i, i, 
222. 

crysoprase. A kind of chal- 
cedony, usually translucent 



apple-green in color. C. B. 
IV, i, 157. See note, p. 191, 
on 152, 157. 

diamond scales. Scales to 
weigh gems, and of extreme 
sensitiveness. B. in S. i, iii, 

187. 

emprise. Adventurousness, 
C. B. Ill, i, 'J67. 



^ h 



expressless. Browning's 

coinage for *Mnexpressible.*' 
B. in S. I, iii, 116. 

eyass. A young hawk. B. in 
S. I, ii, 60. 

Faenza. A small city, an- 
ciently the Faventia of the 
Romans, twenty miles south- 
west of Ravenna. It had at 
the time of this play been an- 
nexed to the Papal States and 
was governed by Rome through 
Ravenna. S. T. i, i, 94. 

fight-mark. An awkward ex- 
pression, apparently the poet's 
own, for a token worn by a 
knight in the tourney, usually 
his lady's glove or sleeve or 
scarf on his helm. B, in S, 
I, iii, 217. 



&l066m 



305 



gadge. S. T. I, i, 332^- See 

note, p. 298, on 264, 332. 
gauntlet-gatherer. One 

who takes up the gauntlet 
thrown down in challenge and 
hence a champion. S. T. i, i, 
72. 
gules. In heraldry, the color 
red. B. in S. in, 2, 150. 

Juliers. A fortified town of 
Rhenish Prussia, about a score 
of miles northeast of Aix-la- 
Chapelle. C. B. i, i, 17. 

losels. Worthless fellows. B, in 

S. II, i, 303. 
Lugo. A town ten miles from 

Faenza. S. T. i, i, 340. 

marcasite. A crystalized form 
of iron pyrites. C. B, i, i, 

353- 
masque. The company of 
players ; hence those whom 
Tresham leaves to go on with 
the play of life after he has 
dropped out, B. in S, in, ii, 
139. 

mercy-stroke. The term 

applied to the stroke by which 
in punishments like breaking 
on the wheel the executioner 
ended the torture by a blow 



mercifully mortal. B. in S, 
I, ii, 128. 

Nepomucene. The patron 
saint of Bohemia. S, T. 11, i, 
61. 

poursuivant. A herald or ad- 
vance messenger. B. in S. 

h i, 4. 
proper. In the old English 
sense of comely as used by the 
Elizabethan dramatists and 
within the last half century — 
perhaps still — in New Eng- 
land. J5. in S. I, i, 59. 

Ravestein. A small town 
thirty miles west of Cleves in 
North Brabant. C. B. i, i, 14. 

San Nicolo. The castle of, 
at Ferrara ? S. T. i, i, 340. 

surcoat. A garment worn 
over armor. B. in S. in, i, 
23. 

thicks. Elizabethan form of 
thicket. B. in S. i, ii, 59. 

trip-hook. S. T. i, i, 332. 
See Notes to S. T., p. 298. 

wimple. A sort of hood cov. 
ering the head and the neck 
to the chin. B in S. in, i, 24. 



lOV 30 1904 



